White Rice

Photo Collection

2008-11-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

Photo Collection: Hainan Province (Southern China)

Photo Collection

2008-11-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

Photo Collection From Beijing

Photos From The Trip

2008-11-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

Photo Collection:

Harbin (Northern China)

March 14th - Farewell to thee Dear China

2008-03-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am sad to say that this will be my last blog entry from Chinese soil. I might do a final “wrap-up” edition or something when I get home, but I'm not sure yet. I'll still have the amazing journey home to write about, but I don't know. I don't really want to spoil it, y'know? But then again, I did start this blog before I left Canada, so I might as well finish it there too. Ok, enough pandering, time to recap!

I've been in China for nearly 7 weeks now, and I've experienced all sorts of new things that I've never seen before. The food, the people and their strange, sometimes backwards customs, the pollution, crazy drivers, and of course, a new language. I am disappointed with myself for not making more of an effort to learn the language in the years leading up to this trip. I knew, marrying a Chinese girl, that this day would come, but I guess I'm still trying to learn to use English to its full potential, and a totally new language might throw my writing off-kilter. Yeah, that's a pretty good excuse. I'll use that one.

I never really thought about how differently people think and act in different countries around the world. In Canada, you can pretty much think and do anything you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone or break any laws. Even then, there is a lot of leeway on freedoms, and rules can indeed be bent. Not so over here in China. Sure, nobody really follows traffic laws, and I'm pretty sure the majority of people cheat on their taxes over here, but in the privacy of the family home, there are more rules, customs and pressures than we could ever handle in Canada. To start with, most families are very patriarchal, with the father or mother calling all the shots, and I guess dictating what other people should do without ever facing any backlash. Sure, I respect my elders and war veterans and the like, but we have sort of an understanding that times have changed, and what they know might not necessarily be right for today's youth. In China, you can't say that to a parent. Mommy or Daddy knows best, and that's just the way it is.

Gift-giving is very strange in China. Most people won't accept gifts, and will physically harm you if you try to pick up the bill at a restaurant. I think it could be one of two things; Either everyone is too proud to accept gifts because it might show that they are needy; or maybe, gifts are two often given under false pretenses over here. That is, the only reason some people will give a gift, is that they can now expect something in return. I actually felt this first hand. On my arrival, I asked a family member where I could exchange some Canadian dollars for Chinese Yuan. I've heard about currency control over here, and that you can't just walk into a store and purchase something in Canadian, or even US dollars. You have to go through a few channels to get money exchanged, and it often takes a while. I could have done it at the airport back in Vancouver, but I was in too much of a rush to even think about it. Anyway, the family member scoffed at my request, and said something like “You're our guest. Anything you want, just ask and we'll buy it for you.” That sounded a bit too good to be true, and was indeed said under false pretenses.

My wife was heading out to the mall one day and asked me if I needed anything. I asked if she could get me a pair of shorts to take back to Canada – it will be too hot to run in my jogging pants when the temperature warms up a bit. She said fine, but when she returned, there was a huge argument between her and the family member who originally made the offer. It was believed that I had demanded the shorts, and not offered to pay for them. Hey, if money is an issue, I have a whole pile of Canadian bills sitting here that nobody wants me to exchange. That bird has flown the coop. If you didn't want to buy me anything, why ask me? People have bought me things, but only when they were chosen by someone else and given to me because they figured I could use it. A scarf for example, was given to me by a family member. I’ll never use that scarf again back in Vancouver, but during the whole shorts argument, the value of said scarf was brought up, and how I've already received so much, how could I be so greedy to ask for something I want? Heck, I thought that was the deal in exchange for not exchanging any money? Maybe I misunderstood. I guess I received under false pretenses.

To combine the patriarchal and gift-giving scenarios, there is a Chinese custom that parents should always put their children through college. This would be fine if the kid got to decide what to study, where, and what sort of certificate they wanted i.e how far to go. My wife for instance, was sent to Canada with the understanding that she would receive a Doctor's degree and one day return to China to help better the country. Her path was already chosen for her. But once she got out of the country and discovered that Canadian students can choose their own major, decide when they’ve had enough or even drop out, then I think the 2 cultures clashed. Still to this day, she receives pressure from her family to keep going to school. She already has a Bachelor's Degree, which is more than I can say for myself, but apparently that is not enough.

I used to think that if somebody wanted to pay for my education, than I'd be all for it. Actually, money is the only thing that's preventing me from going back to school at this time. (Let's just say I want to get one student loan paid off before I sign up for another one.) But with the added pressure, I don't think I'd want to accept the money. There we go with the giving under false pretenses scenario again. I get the sense that there is no such thing as “no strings attached” over here. My mother-m-law actually offered to lend me the money to go back to school, but I decided to politely decline. There's no telling what type of trash talk would go on if I took that money. And what would the repayment schedule be like? “As long as you owe me this money, I own you?” I'd rather pass on the offer thanks. It's very nice that you'd offer it and bring up the Chinese culture and what not, but my own personal culture, no matter what country I'm from, says that I live and die for one thing – myself. Not in the selfish sense, like I don't think of anyone else's feelings. I'm just not going to do something because someone else thinks it would be good for me. If I want to go back to school badly enough, I'll find a way to pay for it, and then nobody can take credit in my success. I could probably write a whole book on that subject, but I won't. Let's just leave it at this: I live by DIY ethics and I'll probably starve to death by them, but there's nothing anybody can do to change that about me.

Now that I've covered the family politics to some degree, I think I should brush on actual politics. We live in a democratic society (or at least we think we do) where the people control the government. If we don't like something or if something smells fishy, the people of Canada will mostly step up and voice their opinions. You see this with MAWO (Mobilization Against War and Occupation) and other such organizations stepping up to protest Canada's potential involvement in the travesty that is the war in Iraq. If leaders in our community step up, politicians are forced to listen, or get out and bring in someone new who will listen to the people who elected him or her. Sure there are flaws, every system has flaws, but let's look back at that bolded statement I made back there. Here in China, the opposite can be said. The government controls the people. Actually, most Chinese people criticize the West for giving too much control to common citizens. Afterall, how would they know how to run a country? They just live there and pay the taxes that buy their so-called representatives a cushy salary and all the perks you could imagine and then some. It’s that way of thinking that leads to a very unhappy populace and eventually they are gonna revolt – unless of course you put the fear into ‘em.

Religion is not very popular here in China, at lease not practicing it. There are still rituals taking place on every street corner though, which I think are more of a tool to control people from rising up and speaking their mind. The Taoist religion, as well as Buddhism are still engrained in Chinese society, whether or not people are going to a temple and praying. Every time someone dies in China, there are mourners who pay their respects in interesting, if not peculiar ways. For example, I see small bonfires on street corners all around Harbin, where locals burn fake money in a little pile. I'm sure they burn real money too, but I see little carts everywhere that sell funny money just to burn in memory of a loved one. Don't ask me how that got started, but I'm sure it helps the economy. “Burn what you earn! The paper bills are just about worthless anyway! The more you burn, the more you'll help to curb inflation!” I think the U.S. is trying to do the opposite now – they are printing money faster than Disney prints coloring books, but maybe they should burn a stack of greenbacks for every US soldier who has lost his or her life in pointless wars. Now that'll get the economy back on track. It's the fashionable thing to do over here in China, why not join in?

Speaking of fashion, there are some articles of clothing that have religious or cultural tie-ins. No, I'm not talking about Buddha t-shirts or monk's cloaks, but adornments that show a certain thing about you, without you having to say a word. I mentioned earlier about the ways of mourning the dead over here. Well, there is one other tradition that I found to be interesting. If you see someone with a black cloth pinned around their arm (much like Jewish POWs back in WWII) then it means a parent has recently died. Different arm means different parent, and it varies for boys or girls. This might be wrong, but I think it's “boy's left arm = father died” &“Girl's left arm = mother died”. Also, if there is a smaller, red cloth wrapped on top of the black one, it means a grandparent died. Same goes; different arm for each gender. I suppose if you see someone wearing this, you are supposed to move out of their way on the street or maybe not cut in front of them in line. I'm not sure the exact reason for displaying the colour black like that. Maybe it's just a respect for the dead thing, but it's pretty common to know somebody who has died if you live over here. Afterall, with such a huge population, somebody is bound to die every minute or so.

That brings me to the population. It's huge! In the northern city of Harbin, it's not quite as evident as some of the larger cities. It's still overblown here, but I think the colder climate and the more industry-heavy economy has driven, or at least kept the people who aren't as tough away. When I went to Beijing, I saw the other side of the coin. There's a city on the move, with a technology-based economy and an ever-growing, youth-oriented group of professionals taking over. In Canada, our nation is dominated by the Baby Boomers, or those approaching senior-citizenry, but in Beijing, I think it's going in the other direction. It seems like the youth movement is strong there, and retirement is probably better enjoyed some place quieter and slower-paced. I for one don't want to be dodging speeding traffic and being pushed and shoved on a subway platform when I'm 90. But then again, that's just me. Maybe Beijing will be the headquarters for a new youth movement where the old patriarchal ideals are obliterated. For the sake of the next generation, I sure hope so.

Such a huge population would undoubtedly cause more problems than just congested automobile and pedestrian traffic. I can tell that the health care system in China is pretty much inaccessible for the majority of people, unless they have money. I could tell that by the number or frost-bitten, toeless people wailing at the marketplace, and the general ignorance for one's personal well-being. Maybe it's considered selfish to go to the doctor's office for that little scrape. Heck, you can stitch that up yourself! Michael Moore should come over here and do “Sicko Vol 2”. He might be shocked at what he sees. I did hear something interesting though. If you give blood in China, a monetary credit can be put towards your next medical bills. Most people will just take the cash, but if you are really responsible, you can realize the full potential of that intravenous insurance policy flowing through your veins. As Canada, BC in particular, flirts with the idea of “pay-for-priority” and private medical clinics, maybe this blood idea would come in handy. I gotta say, China is one step up in that regard. I once asked a nurse at Canadian Blood Services why I don't get paid my blood, and she told me that if money was offered, the wrong type of donors would be attracted. A.k.a. people who really need the money. Then, if someone is turned away, they will be furious. Actually, the nurse said that they used to pay for blood back in the old days, but too many people were lying on that questionnaire they get you to fill out, and it ends up putting more of a strain on the medical system because they have to re-test the blood and destroy it if it turns out to be unsafe.

Let's talk about safety for a moment. Yesterday I say 2 men repairing some bricks on the side of a tall apartment building. There they were, hanging in the air on a backyard swing propelled from a rather frayed-looking rope, held by a young fellow up on the roof. No safety harness, no net to catch them in case they fell. You wouldn’t catch me up there, that's for sure. Actually, if I fell, nobody would catch me DOWN there either, and that's precisely why I wouldn't do it. Seatbelts are another topic of discussion. When my wife and I get into a taxi, we immediately buckle up. I don't know if it's a force of habit for her, but I do it for my personal safety and mental well-being. Drivers immediately know we are foreigners because “Nobody wears a seat belt around here.” Some taxis don't even offer seatbelts, and forget about bracing for impact. My wife got ragged on for putting her foot up against the glove box while we sped into oncoming traffic. She was honestly bracing for impact. But do you think the driver apologized for making his passengers feel uncomfortable? No, he insulted her for having no manners, and started saying that her parents must not have done a very good job of raising someone with no manners. What a joke! If you saw the way people drive over here, you'd fear for your life too!

Life in China must be difficult for a young person today. I'm edging up on 25 now, so I'm not exactly a child, but I still feel inadequate over here. The whole “respect your elders” credo has gotten a bit out of hand, to the point that you can't disagree with someone if they are older than you by a couple of weeks. Even calling someone older than you by their first name is rude. You are supposed to address him as “uncle” regardless of your family relations. Here we might have the most ignorant, chain-smoking alcoholic loser in the world, but I still have to glorify him by calling him “uncle”. No thanks.

I'm thankful for being brought along on this trip. Don't take my above observations as a sign of dislike for the Chinese people or anything like that. Quite the contrary! Besides, I don't want to get shot or “disappear” as so many people over here do. I've just noticed a few things that have made my trip a bit uncomfortable at times, but I'm glad I got to experience a new culture like this. If I never left my comfy Canadian lifestyle, I wouldn't ever be able to appreciate what an easy life we all have in the great white north. Sure, we may complain that there are too many people in the crowded parking lots, and how the movie theatre is always packed when we try to get a good seat, but believe me, it could be a lot worse. I think I might actually start appreciating what we have in Canada before it's gone. This trip has at least opened my eyes to that.

There are lots of positive aspects to my journey to China, and you can read all about them in my previous blog entries if you have the time. Today, I just wanted to clear a few things out of my mind and get them off my chest. I don't imagine I'm 100% right or accurate with what I have said here, but then again, nobody is 100% right 100% of the time, and that's the beauty of writing in this form. I can express my opinions any way I want and I am grateful for this opportunity. If you've actually taken the time to read this in its entirety, I just want to thank you for giving me your time. There are plenty of other things you could be doing right now, like getting out there and exploring another culture, or better yet, discovering your own. Whatever you do, make sure you write about it, or at least take pictures. Thanks for accompanying me on my little trip to big China. I hope you've enjoyed my visit as much as I have.

March 14th - The Name is Ling... Bo Ling

2008-03-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

Last night we went out bowling with my wife's cousin and his girlfriend – a sort of double date if you will. I think you will. Anyway, we got in a taxi and headed to the Bowlarama, only when the taxi stopped, I didn’t see the bowling alley anywhere. “Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked my wife. She assured me it was, and led me through a set of revolving doors and into a hotel lobby. Okay, I thought, maybe we were meeting the cousin here and then going to the bowling alley. Now it all makes sense.

Actually, I learned something today - that you can always find a bowling alley where you least expect it. Up on the second floor of the hotel, there was a modest-sized bowling alley, complete with Hello Kitty bowling balls that you could rent for a modest price. I was tempted, but used a house ball instead. I still couldn't get over the location of this bowling alley! From the outside of the hotel, there was no bowling-pin shaped neon sign or anything! How was I supposed to know that inside, there were strikes and spares and seven-ten splits galore? But now that I was inside, I told the shoe rental clerk to “spare” me the pleasantries. I hate to “bowl” someone over, but I gotta “split”. I've got some pins to knock down!

At first, I was pretty rusty. It's been a while since I rolled a big heavy round object down a long, waxed surface towards 10 free-standing pillars painted white with little red stripes at the top. In fact, I can't think of any other situation that I could perform such an act, aside from maybe that carnival game where you try to knock over the lead milk bottles with a stuffed baseball. But then it's more of a throw, not so much a roll. After about 3 or 4 frames, I got back in the swing of things and I was really rollin'. With the first game in the books, I came out as winner, but only by about 4 pins. My wife was hot on my tail for the whole game, and my low score was more of a help to her than a sore in my saddle. I was having a great time.

To my left, there was a man bowling all by himself. He looked to be semi-competitive, because he wasn't wasting any time. He had 3 names up there on the screen, and it looked like he was always trying to beat the last score. Maybe he has some sort of multiple-bowler personality disorder. I watched him closely though, because he had incredible technique, and managed to hit about 3 strikes in a row. If this was soccer baseball, nobody would ever score a run, or goal or whatever they go by in that pseudo-sport. A Wicket, maybe? Heck I forget. They always let the kid in the wheelchair be pitcher in my gym class anyway. I mean, I understand that you want to make him feel happy and all, but I hated being on his team. He barely dove for any grounders, and he wasn't the greatest pitcher either. Yeah I know, I'm probably going to hell for writing this, but at least they'll have decent pitching down there. I'm pretty sure Roger Clemens will be headed down south after this whole steroid use/perjury nonsense.

Now back to the Bowling alley. After I picked up a few pointers from Hand Solo over there, I was rockin' AND rollin'. I hit 3 strikes in a row, followed by 2 spares! I was killin' it! On one of the spares though, there was a malfunction and the little arm that picks up the pins you left standing actually knocked them down instead. The barrier raised again to reveal an empty lane. “What do I do?” I asked. “Just chuck one” said my wife. So I let 'er rip as hard as I could and lo and behold, the computer said I knocked it down. This happened a couple more times, but usually only to me. That's a little wacky, and your serious bowler might get a little upset, but hey, this was working out in my favour! I just came to have a god time, and I actually bowled one of the best games of my life! I have to give some credit to the machine though. I had some help now and again from my pals over at Brunswick Bowling Equipment. The must have heard I was from New Brunswick, so you know, they want to cheer on the home team. Thanks guys!

March 13th - The Great Scrape

2008-03-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the Chinese Bath Houses? I used to picture a giant sauna and hot tub, where men & women wash themselves once a week to keep the lice and ticks away. Well, I found out first hand what it's all about. The "Harbin Modern Recreational Centre" has one thing the old bath houses of the past don't have - people to wash you. Now I'm not talking about a person who stands there in the shower with you. "Pass me the soap, will ya?" But rather a trained professional in the art of dermabrasion.

To start off, you have to strip down to your flip flops and join the rest of the unwashed masses in a huge bathroom. No, it's gender specific, unfortunately. The dudes go in one side and the dudettes int he other. Still, I felt a little bit uneasy standing around in my birthday suit. Especially when some guy named wong was staring at my wang. I wish I knew how to say "Jealous?" in Chinese, but instead I just winked at him. That seemed to scare him off.

Now, after the gawkers had their fill, I sat down in a huge hot tub. Actually they have 2 hot tubs - one is just hot, and the other one is scalding. I couldn't stay in the scalding tub for too long or my organs would start to cook. So, I just par-boiled myself and moved on. They also have a "cold tub" here which I found interesting. It's like a hot tub, only the water is ice cold. Needless to say, I didn't feel like racing my heart today, so I skipped that one.

After I sat around and dried off a bit, I moved on to the final, and most important stage - the scraping of the dead skin. That sounds a bit like a horror movie, doesn't it? "The Scraping of the Dead". I'd watch it. Actually the real version is kinda scary the first time you see it, but you learn to get used to it. Firt off, you lie on a massage table covered in saran wrap, and someone pours warm water all over you. The, using a special sandpaper mitt, a dude starts rubbing your skin from head to toe, releasing any tough dirt buildup and dead skin that is left on your body. I imagine a few layers of live skin come off too, because my chest was looking like a lobster tail by the end of it. He then asks you to roll over on your stomach. Being naked, my natural reaction was to clench - everything. But he asked me to relax, or at least that's what I think he asked me. He scraped my back, my gluteus maximus, and finally, in between my toes and the soles of my feet. That one tickled.

After I was a few layers of skin lighter, I was told I'm supposed to rub salt all over my body and go into the sauna. I did this, and I gotta tell ya, it burned baby. I don't know if the salt is supposed to seal all my timy wounds from the sandpaper, but I got some in my eyes, and boy did it hurt. Like the tubs, there are 2 saunas. Hot, and furnace. You're supposed to stay in there until all the salt liquifies and runs off your body, so I went inside the furnace to speed up the process. I couldn't stay in there much longer than 5 minutes, and when I emerged I felt like jumping in the cold bath, but I held back. Instead, I was given a razor and a squirt of shaving cream. They say after the sauna is the best time to shave. So I did, and yeah, they were right! Shaving has never been so easy, and I managed to avoid gashing myself up!

After I finished my shave, I jumped in the shower and reached over for the supplied body wash. There were 2 types - aloe, and milk. Milk? Okay, whatever. I washed myself in milk for the first time today. You'd think it would go sour, sitting there in the shower, but actually, it gave me some new power! My skin was still feeling a bit "open" from all the scraping, but when I applied the milk, that feeling abated. Now I felt great! I had just come from a 10K run before the bath house, and when I weighed myself on the way out, I saw that I had lost 2 Kilos! That can't be right can it? Well, actually, now that I think about it, all that dead skin they scraped off me probably weighs quite a bit. Now that I think about it, maybe that's where the term "skinny" came from. "Look at that guy, they scraped him all over and now half of his skin is on the floor. Let's call him skinny."

March 12th - And the Polar Bears Were Boiled in their Tanks

2008-03-12T00:15:00.000-07:00

I sorta borrowed the title for today's entry from an early Beat Generation novel called “And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks” because I think it fits in a way. Yesterday we decided to make use of out limited time here in China by going across the river to see some animals. My wife loves animals of all sorts – dogs, cats, birds, slugs, you name it. When I first arrived in Harbin some six weeks ago, I noticed a sign at the airport for “Harbin Polarland” which showed some penguins wearing sunglasses, and a father and son tobogganing with a Polar Bear. Looked like a good time!

Aside from Polarland, there is also a Tiger Preservation Centre over on the other side of the river. It's sort of a nature reserve dedicated to the preservation and breeding of large cats. My wife missed our family cat I guess, because next thing I knew, we were on a safari through this semi-large grassland full of roaming tigers. For 40 Yuan, you could order a live chicken and watch them feed it to a huge adult tiger right in front of your eyes. We did, and I must say, I've never seen a chicken crap out its intestines before, but once the tiger put a big Chomp on the bird’s stomach, you might say it was scared shitless.

After the mobile tour was over, we were allowed to roam around in the breeding centre. Here they would put a male and a female of the same species (or sometimes not) to hopefully produce an offspring. Actually, there was a bit of playing God going on, because they had lions and tigers together in the same pen, in order to produce Liger cubs, which they proudly had on display. There were also cheetahs, leopards, and my favorite, the jaguars. We actually interrupted 2 jaguars getting their jag on, and one of them wouldn’t stop staring at me for as long as I was standing there. I guess if you interrupt two people while they are getting down to business, you are public enemy #1, at least around these parts.

On my way out, I had a chance to read some despicably-translated materials on the park. It was founded in 1996 after Bengal tigers were put on the endangered species list, and is now home to over 600 large cats, including the rare “white tiger”. I was hoping they were also home to the rare 80's band “Glass Tiger”, but I wasn't so lucky. I felt dejected, once again, because my dream of taking part in a Chinese 80's headbanger's ball were again crushed.

After we left the tiger amusement park, I figured we were just going home. That seemed like enough excitement for one day. But Nooooo, the driver pulled into another parking lot, this time with garbage cans shaped like penguins greeting us at the entrance. The idea with these trash receptacles is, you actually put your waste in the penguin’s mouth! I thought most zoos discouraged feeding the animals, but this one has that all taken care of. Feeding the penguins is okay, as long as they are 4 feet tall and made of fiberglass.

Once inside, we looked at some sturgeon and I could have sworn I smelled fish frying somewhere in this place. It must be like that fish farm I worked at one summer. Every week, they would let us take home a fish to barbecue. At least my coworkers convinced me that I was allowed to. Maybe that’s why I never did get asked to come back the next summer...Somewhere in the hidden back rooms of this place, I just know there is a big ol’ country fish fry going on, and damn if I wasn't just a little bit hungry.

Moving on, we saw seals swimming around in a tank, but the water looked like it was about “kiddie-pool” depth, plus there were all these props in there with them – a dingy, some sort of water wheel, a bunch of buoys, and not to mention, 4 seals. I watched them flop around for a bit, but then we moved on to the next exciting animals – the penguins!

When you think of penguins, that big-time, box office smash “March of the Penguins” probably comes to your mind. This documentary features only 1 type of penguin, the “Emperor Penguin”. They are the largest of the penguin family, and make some pretty cool noises too. At Polarland, there is a whole mish-mash of the penguin brotherhood. I counted at least 3 different species, and there were about 30 penguins in all, hopping around on the fake rocks, all jazzed up with white spray paint so you felt like you were in the arctic. I followed the journey of one guy from the time he plopped his round little body into the water, to his loops and summersaults all over the tank. He looked like he was having tons of fun. Just then a worker entered the penguin habitat to check on something. It was funny, because the penguins must recognize him as a source of food. They all followed him in a big line, single file. It looked like a big game of follow-the-leader, but no fish were given out as prizes. The dude just checked the thermostat and left. Poor little guys didn't even get a sardine for their troubles.

Now, moving on to the next area, I saw out of the corner of my eye, what looked like a big hairy blonde dude swimming laps. That reminds me, my YMCA membership has run out. No, wait, that's a Polar Bear! There were 2 of the beasts, with one doing the backstroke from end to end of the water tank, and another up on the fake rocks, looking like he wanted to kill somebody. He must have been pissed off, because this tank was tiny. I was actually pretty appalled at the size of this tank. When both Polar Bears were in the water together, they could barely move around. Luckily, they learned to swap now & again, with one in the water swimming laps, and the other pacing on the rocks, from end to end. The whole tank couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 feet long, and less than that in depth. My wife asked one of the workers if they have a “Polar Bear Show” like they do with the seals. I saw him laugh. I figure he said something like “Are you crazy? Do you think someone would actually get in there with 2 angry Polar Bears?”

Aside form the Polar Bears, the main attraction at this place was 2 Beluga Whales. Back in Vancouver, the local Aquarium has 3 or 4, I think, with one having just died last summer. Tragic, I know, but what's more tragic is the lack of space these poor animals have at Harbin Polarland. I think they make due with what they have though, because one of the whales was swimming around, playing with a toy and having a great time. The other one was just sitting still, not moving at all, and only coming up for breaths now and again. Either it was napping, or it just doesn't have the energy to move. The Belugas I've seen in captivity are usually pretty blubbery, and almost like big marshmallows. These 2 were slim, grayish things with scars all over them. I don't know their story, but either they got outta line and the trainer gave them a lashing, or they were rescued in a harbour somewhere, after getting caught in a fisherman's net. Either way, I didn't feel like watching them.

My wife on the other hand, wanted to stick around for the Whale Show at 1PM. In the meantime, we checked out the shark tank downstairs. It was odd. All these different tropical fish, turtles and manta rays were swimming around in the same tank as 3 great big bull sharks. Why don't they eat them? Maybe they are all vegetarians like in the Jack Black movie. Maybe they're just full. Yeah, that's probably it. Maybe here used to be several hundred fish in this tank. Now, there's maybe 50. After a while, they probably got sick of fish. How about a nice, juicy tourist. We're sick of Chinese food too. What's that? Italian? Mama mia! I think I'm safe though. Nobody ever asks for Canadian food, do they? What do you feel like tonight, honey? Chinese? Indian? Maybe Thai? Naw, how about some Canadian?!?! Ok, I'll get the timbits, you go pick up a 12-pack of Molson. Now that's a wholesome dinner!

After a bunch of fluttering around, getting the Belugas to wag their tails like dogs and wave to the giddy onlookers, they cranked up the music, and the trainer got in the pool. Now to add to the cheese-factor, they were playing Celine Dion, and the trainer started floating around, pretending to kiss the whale. Awww, isn't that sweet. I kept waiting for the whale to make a wrong turn and crush the pesky human up against the side of the tank, but it never happened. The whole show lasted about 7 minutes, and ended with the wetsuit-clad teenager jumping out of the water off the nose of the whale. My wife really enjoyed it, so I played along, No point ruining her day with my “plight of the animals” schpeal. She agreed that the tanks were too small, but I suppose in China, the rules are more lax when it comes to animal treatment. Heck, back home, you practically have to cross a picket line to go to the circus. I know, I once applied to be a carnie, but I couldn't take the carnage.

On the way out, we stopped off to have one last look at the Polar Bears, and a pair of wolves that were also on display. I read the sign and learned that the wolves were from Canada. Finally! Someone I can relate to. I asked them where the nearest Tim's was, but I don't think they heard me. They were too busy watching over their young. Watching them over there in that other pen. I don't know what it will do to you if you are separated from your parents by a pane of glass, but it had these wolf cubs thinking they were hamsters. There was a little training wheel in the middle of the cub pen, and one of them was running his little legs off. I have expected his water dish to be filled with gator-aid and to see him wearing a little sweat band on his wolf-mullet. But no, like me, these guys like it “au-naural”. No gimmicks, no special equipment. Just me, the glass wall, and my giant hamster wheel. Now excuse me, I have to go eat my food pellets now. Don't step on my tail.

March 11th - Edible Oddities

2008-03-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of some of the interesting things I've encountered on the dinner table while in China. I have eaten all of these things, and I live to tell the tale. And no, I haven't eaten any dogs or cats over here. At least I don't think so.

Silk Worms – Yes, they are actual worms. They serve them roasted, baked or boiled, and they idea is to pierce the hard exoskeleton and suck out all of the creamy innards. I've been told that eating 3 silk worms will give you the same amount of protein as eating one egg. Not my favourite food by any stretch, but if I was starving, I could eat them.

Bone Marrow – Inside every hambone lies the thick, salty fluid that drives dogs wild – bone marrow. When a waitress hands you plastic gloves and a drinking straw, you know that you are in for a treat. The idea is to eat away all the meat, and then poke your straw into the canal inside this hambone, then you suck, suck, suck your meal away.

Congee – There's really nothing shocking about rice soup, I just find it a bit strange, and I am not a huge fan of it. To start with, the texture throws my appetite off a bit. Imagine a big bowl of warm, chunky snot is set down in front of you. Wanna bite? Or rather, a slurp? The flavour, or rather lack thereof, is quite bland, and just tastes like watery rice. I don’t see what the big deal is about it, and why it’s such a popular food, especially at breakfast. I'll take my rice solid, please.

Hot Milk – You can't just drink regular milk here in China. It's either sweetened to the point that it's now considered a soft drink, or it's boiled to remove any bacteria. I ordered a milkshake at one restaurant, and they served me a hot glass of purple milk. It was disgusting. I couldn't drink it. This isn't just for cow's milk, but soy milk as well. There's something about hot milk that just turns my stomach.

Hot water – At a restaurant, if you ask for a glass of water, it's not ice water. They bring you a cup of boiling water. I don't know if people generally like the feeling of scalding their lips, or if it's just a precautionary measure to kill any bacteria. Either way, I miss good ol' tap water that you can actually drink.

Pig's Head – There is one day of the year when everyone HAS to eat pig's head. I think it's some sort of ritual, like a dragon once ate a pig's head or something, so it's good luck. Last night I was lucky enough to eat some, and it was pretty darn rubbery. It tasted like pork alright, but a little more weathered. But, I suppose if I had to eat one animal's face, it would be a pig's. Considering all the hot dogs I ate as a kid, I feel like I've already eaten about 15,000 snouts, ears and eyeballs anyway, so what's one more?

Chicken Feet – Another rubbery treat, chicken's feet are considered a delicacy here in China. You can even buy them at corner stores in little plastic wrappers, all ready to be heated up in the microwave “nuke & puke” style. I've eaten a few of these, and aside from their texture, they just taste like chicken. Oh wait, they are chicken.

Duck's tongue – When I ate peking duck, a special piece of meat was given to me on a tiny little plate. It was pretty long, but tasted really nice & it was tender as hell. I've also had goose tongues, but I didn't like them as much. They were cooked in some sort of sauce that I didn't appreciate. I think it was called saliva.

Duck's brain – I always thought salmon was brain food? But I guess, what better brain food than brain itself? Brains are a rare delicacy here in China, and are served in special ceremonial dishes. What are they called again? Oh, right. HEADS!

Chicken necks – When you buy a frozen turkey or chicken at the supermarket, you often find a frozen bag of organs and a crooked neck rammed inside the carcass. When I was a kid, my mom used to cook the neck and feed it to our cats. They loved it! Over here in china, the neck of the chicken is chopped up into little pieces and served just like the rest of the chicken. I didn't even realize it was the neck, until I looked closely and saw that I was sucking on vertebrae.

This is just my Top 10 for now. I know there are far stranger things out there, and I don't dare mention the black market trade of tiger's penises and all that spiritual stuff. I don't think I was given the full tour of Chinese cuisine, just because I have friends over here who care about my health. I have heard stories about white people being served dog food over here as a joke, and then being sick for a week. Hopefully that doesn't happen to me in my last week over here in China. All in all, I have enjoyed the majority of the food, maybe aside from the silk worms and chicken feet. One thing’s for sure though, when I was eating a chicken's foot, nobody got mad at me for biting my nails.

March 10th - A Marrow Escape

2008-03-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

It was a fairly uneventful day today. Being Sunday, everybody was in rest-mode, including yours truly, after a long night of clubbing China-style. We mostly lazed around the bedroom today, and I started the packing process. Believe it or not, this is our last week in China. 7 days from now I'll be on my way home, and then I don't know what I'll write about. Maybe I can continue my story of a Canadian boy living in um, Canada?

Anyways, the highlight of my day was when we went out for dinner with Mother-In-law's friends. You might remember the food pushers from an earlier entry. If not, I'll refresh your memory. It's this older couple who think everybody is too skinny, and needs to put on some weight to stay healthy. They use every trick in the book, from putting food on your plate for you, to masticating your steak and regurgitating it back into your mouth like a hawk feeds its young. I'm grateful for them saving me energy like that, but when I've had enough, I've had enough.

There was one item on the menu tonight that deserves at least a paragraph, maybe even a run-on sentence or two. The first dish the waitress brought out was a stack of giant hambones. Alright! Now we get to play dinosaurs! Pass me a brontosaurus bone, will ya? They even give you a pair of plastic gloves like those Subway Sandwich artists wear so you don't get any meat juice on your hands. And what's this? A straw? I didn't order a milkshake, did I?

It turns out that the straw was for a different type of beverage – a meatshake. After I was done picking all the meat off my leg joints, the idea is to stick your straw into the carpal tunnel of the hambone and suck out all the marrow. I imagined a bar for dogs – this would be the most popular drink. “Ruff, gimme a cartilage cocktail. Ruff ruff.” I felt like I was drinking gravy through a straw. Now, I usually like to enjoy a tall glass of gravy at dinner, but I prefer to drink it right out of the gravy boat, not like this.

After my 2nd femur, I decided to move on to another dish. My pusher was watching me closely. He spun the giant turntable around every time a new dish was brought out (there were about 15 dishes altogether) so that the newest dish was positioned right in front of me. Now I couldn't stay out of the line of fire. I ate and ate till half past eight, then I had to say nein. I couldn't eat another bite, honestly. To a food pusher, this means that you can have at least 2 more helpings. I was offered some sort of pastry, and I took it, thinking it was dessert. When I bit into it, the crust was filled with meat and vegetables. Dammit! I thought this was desert. Those crafty food veterans tricked me into eating another course! I must admit though, they are skilled at what they do.

After politely refusing yet another offer to put food on my plate, Mr Pusher came up with the theory that I eat too fast, and therefore I filled up too early. He began telling my Mother-In-Law that I ought to eat more slowly, and then I can eat all night. Well, if I didn't have someone trying to ram food down my throat all night, I could have eaten nice and slowly and actually enjoyed my meal! In the end, I felt pretty full, but not disgustingly stuffed, like the last time I dined with the Food Nazis. That is, if the Nazis just went around making people overeat instead of sending them to gas chambers and concentration camps. Same difference.

March 9th - Chinese Dance Club

2008-03-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

Most people who know me are aware that I don't usually go in for dance clubs. Last night, Mother-In-Law's driver wanted to take my wife and I out for dinner and drinks, followed by a visit to this place called Baby Face. We went to a familiar place for dinner – I'd been there before, when we came back from Sanya. Now listen to this: After we had all finished eating, everyone was sitting around chattin, and since I can't take part in that business, I was sittin around drinkin. I must have had 6 or 7 quarts of beer, when our waiter came in with another guy who worked in the restaurant. He pointed at me and made a gesture with his hands, like he was measuring something. Everyone laughed and started looking at me.

I asked my wife what was happening, and she told me that the waiter remembered me from the last time because I'm such a boozebag. He showed everyone how much hooch I drank at dinner last time. I'm not sure if I've described the moonshine they drink over here, but imagine you've just filled your glass with turpentine, lit it on fire, and downed the whole glass. It gives you a nice, excrutiating feeling down in your gutiwuts.

Now that I was primed, well-oiled, and a little bit buzzed, we got in a taxi and headed out for a night on the town. Our gang was made up of: My wife, her niece, the company driver, his wife, their 9-year-old daughter, and myself. Yes, that's right, the dude brought his little girl along to the club. Now, there are 2 views on this situation. The first: “I wish my parents were that cool!” And the 2nd: “Are you sure it's okay? What will that do to the kid?” Apparently it's more common than you would think, because the club had lots of kid-friendly items on their menu – ice cream sundaes, fresh fruit, popcorn, candy, and lots of juice. Looking around though, I see lots of underage girls, maybe in the 15-18 age bracket, who these items would probably appeal to as well. Nice business strategy! Our little partier just sat there with her mom, munching away on ice cream and goodies, looking content as could be.

Now for the adult refreshments. They have a unique way of getting you drunk at this place. To start with, you choose a 40 ouncer of any booze you want (we chose the finest cognac – or rather the driver chose it.), then the waitress comes by and pours a few shots into a large pitcher of ice. She then fills it up with ice tea, and slob's your uncle. I couldn't even taste the booze in it, but I was assured that it was indeed “strong tea” by the others. I had a few dozen glasses of the stuff, and then I started to feel tealightful.

Now for the music – at first it was just your average club music. It's funny, the last time I went to a club was probably a couple of years ago, and the music hasn't changed, aside from substituting the old Justin Timberlake and Black Eyed Peas songs with the new ones. There was some hip hop, r&b, and you know, some other music that you'd hear on the radio. They were playing it pretty safe. My wife told me that there was going to be some sort of “show” later. I didn't know what to expect, but I saw 2 stripper poles at either end of the club. The dancers came out, assumed their “positions” at the poles, but they didn't strip. They just danced sort of nonchalantly, like they didn't really want to be there. I got the idea that they aren't paid very well to do this. Nobody was waving singles at them, so they weren't showing the goods. Fair trade. No money, no honey.

We stayed for a while longer, and eventually my wife and her niece convinced me to dance. Actually, they had some help from a Mr Cognac. I think he and I make a pretty good dance partner. I told my wife that, in order to help her out, I would make a fool of myself on the dance floor so people wouldn't look at her and judge her moves. She said she was feeling a bit rusty, so I decided to create the spectacle. I busted out several of my old classics – the lawnmower, the grocery shopper, biker daddy, the smoker, and when the strobe light kicked in, I busted out the “oops, my shoe is untied.”

And now, I would like to share with you my new move. I'm not sure if I invented this, but if nobody else lays claim to it, the blog will be proof that I am the inventor of “The Flower Petal”. Yes, that's right, the flower petal. You can act it out in a number of ways, but I usually like to start by a) digging a hole; b) planting a seed; c) watering it; d)waiting patiently, looking at watch, etc and then, the piece de resistance; e) crouch down really low and gradually get taller and taller, ending with my hands opened underneath my face, revealing the flower that is me. I'm not sure if I can draw a picture for you, ut my hands would look something like this:

@
V

Imagine my face is the At symbol and the V would be my two hands. Other variations of this move could include the ice cream cone (get someone to lick the top of your head), the Venus flytrap (bite people, or just chomp at them if you are vegetarian), and the Home Alone Kid (everybody knows this one). It's okay, I will allow you to use this move if you want. I'm not greedy when it comes to boogeying down. I say, if you have a boogie, share it with a friend. My instructional DVDs will be available soon, but only in fine stores that sell pirated videos including non-licensed music and copyrighted materials. This means, it will only be released in China, and possibly the Phillipines, if I can find a mule to sneak them into the country for me.

So my friends, if you have a chance to visit a club when you are in China, I can recommend a good one right here in Harbin. It's called baby face, and the manager is a pretty cool guy. He came up, shook my hand, gave me his card and yelled something into my ear. I'm not sure what he said, but I heard every word. It's that kind of dedication that brings customers back time and time again. Heck, I know where I'll be going next time I want to bust out an ice cream cone, Venus Flytrap or Flower Petal. Boogey on!

Did You Read The Headlines?

2008-03-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

I just found out that I was being spied on recently at a restaurant. My Mother-In-Law, ever the fan of the occult, hired a psychic to come along and secretly scope me out for flaws, etc. I don't know if the whole dinner was staged for that reason alone, as there were other friends invited too, but I of course, didn't know what was going on; everyone spoke in Mandarin as usual, so I just sat there and ate silently.

My wife told me what was going on the next day. She asked if I wanted to hear about it, and I said no, as I thought it was a crock of shit. I would however, like to know how much this dude got paid for doing this, and if it's a lot, I would like to get in on this scam. They could call me “The Paleface Liar” or something, and I will judge your cosmic energy by how many times you get up to go to the bathroom during dinner, and how many times you chew before swallowing to calculate your zodiac number in the cosmos.

My wife decided to tell me some stuff anyway, but all casual-like. She said, yeah he said you must be healthy because you can drink a lot and it doesn’t phase you. I laughed. Either that or alcoholism is genetic. Did you tell him about my Irish roots? That should be considered. I probably drink a lot less than your average pig farmer. Oh, and that wrinkle on your forehead, it means you are independent. What? That's enough, that's enough. “No, no,” she says. My wife was getting a kick out of this. He was looking at the way you hold your chopsticks too. He says the higher you hold your sticks, the further you will go in life.

Apparently, he only found good things, or at least that's all my wife was telling me about. I must have a good cosmic balance in my zodiac bank account. Mother-In-Law went off to his den to have another reading for herself just now. I don't know if they will throw tea into the air or roll the cat's bones, but hopefully he can tell her which lottery numbers to pick, and who is going to win the Stanley Cup this year. Just think, if you had this guy around all the time, you'd never have to leave the house! Or at the very least, you wouldn't want to. It would be too hilarious. Now excuse me, I have to go iron out the wrinkle on my forehead, just to throw him off.

March 8th - Morning Market Massacre

2008-03-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

Last night my wife said that she would like to take me to the outdoor morning market, a sort of swap meet/farmers market where you can buy everything from artichokes to zucchinis all under one, well, sky. Sounded like fun to me! I love fresh fruit, especially when it's dirt cheap (It's usually the cheapest when there's still dirt on it. That's how you can tell if it's fresh too). So, we woke up extra early so we'd get there before the pickins got too slim, you see.

Walking to the market, there were a bunch of peripheral merchants, not necessarily part of the whole function, but taking advantage of all the foot traffic. I imagine you have to pay in order to get a stand at the market, but if you are say, 25 feet outside the gates, it's all gravy. One guy was standing there yelling “Everything you see, 2 for 1 Yuan!” On the ground all around him were little piles of nail clippers, rulers, rolls of tape, crazy glue (a glue-sniffer's paradise) and other odds and ends you usually find in your junk drawer back home. We stopped and the maid bought a few spools of thread. You never know, I might accidentally tear a hole in my batman outfit one night. I don't want to be out there fighting crime AND hypothermia.

We finally entered the market. We headed down the meat isle first. Here, you could buy every cut of meat imaginable, and some you'd probably care not to imagine. They had chicken legs, chicken feet, breasts, backs, necks, beaks, bones, and skin. If chickens had fins, they'd be there. I just covered my beak and kept on cluckin'. None of that today, thank you. My wife sampled a couple of cherry tomatoes. Oh yeah, they'll let you sample just about anything in this place. Except the chicken necks. There was this incident a while back, and they don't want to stick their neck out any further on this one. Bada-bing!

We picked up some hand-made noodles and a block of wiggly-jiggly tofu. I've never been a huge fan of tofu, or “douf” as it's called here, but if it's cooked just right, aka deep-fried, I'll eat it. Actually, you could probably deep-fry turds and I'd like it. I love anything battered and dipped in hot oil. Which conveniently, is the next item we bought!

My wife wanted to buy her childhood morning market treat, but apparently they stopped selling it. I suggested health code violations, but she said the weather was too cold. We settled instead on a deep-fried honey cake. I figured it would taste great, you know, being deep fried and all, but boy was I wrong. It was quite flavorless, and the batter kind of stuck to the roof of your mouth in gritty cream-form. Yuck! After one bite I was done with that little catastrophe.

I saw another catastrophe today, but it was in human form. There was a beggar sitting on a little homemade cart in the middle of the crowded market. He had a little plastic bucket on the ground beside him, into which passers-by were dropping coins. Now, back home I walk past beggars all the time. You can never tell if they actually need the money, whether or not they'll feed themselves with it, or if it's going up their nose or into a hypodermic. This time, I was sure it was going to a good cause.

To start with, the man had no shoes on. That was sad. But when I got up closer, I saw that he had no toes on either foot! That was a bloody tragedy! When I looked at his hands, I saw that he was missing 2-3 fingers on each hand. He had no teeth, and I could see scars on his emaciated face, either from some sort of cruel torture, or maybe they were self-inflicted, I don't know. We dropped some coins into his bucket and headed off. I wonder if he got enough to buy himself something to eat today.

I usually try to wind up these little stories with some humorous quip for you, the reader's enjoyment, but this time, for the sake of that poor, toeless bugger, I think I'll end it on the serious side today. Be thankful for what you have, and try not to act in prejudice when it comes to those with an outstretched hand. Take a closer look, and it could be a face you recognize, or maybe your own reflection some day. If you're always in too big a hurry to lend a hand, who's to say anybody will drop you a coin when you need it? There, that's my preaching for the month.

March 7th - Ping Pawn

2008-03-07T01:06:00.001-08:00

Today was the day which I awaited in anticipation for quite some time now. Today was the highly-publicized table tennis match pitting this lowly Canadian wordsmith against the wily veteran Father-In-Law. I had better bring my A-game too. I’d been talking some big talk, now let’s see if I could walk a big walk. I made sure to eat a good meal the night before, get plenty of rest, and skip breakfast the day of the big match. It's like Johnny Cash used to say to his band The Tennessee Three, “Always play hungry”.

Well, maybe I should have eaten my oatmeal with a straw this morning because I was sure sucking it up now. This man was clearly well-practiced. My wife told me that he plays every day. In fact, his dining room table converts to a ping pong table if you just put the leaf in. I was no match for his ping pong prowess. I hung my head in defeat today, for the first time in a while. I don't feel too bad though. He was obviously going easy on me, and I actually kept up for a little while. That is until he started unleashing his big smash on me, or a stupifying topspin shot that left me scratching my head with ping pong perplexity. He could actually make the ball bounce in a totally different direction than where it came from.

After my humiliation, my wife and I started changing up, rallying with Dad until he got bored and tried letting us win. A few older, retired guys were watching us, and decided that my Father-In-Law was easy bait, and swooped in for a challenge. What they didn't know, was that he was once district champion in these parts, and was only putting on a show with us so he could shark these guys and send them off with their paddles between their legs. (I could have used balls there, but that would be downright perverted. I refuse to tarnish the good name of table tennis for the sake of a testicle joke, thank you very much.)

Father-In-Law destroyed the first challenger handily, beating him in straight games. They play games to 11, in a best-of-five series. Father-In-Law won the first game 11-3, then 11-6. Next! I had been watching his next challenger play for a while. His unique serving technique caught my eye over on the other side of the room. This dude might actually make Dad break a sweat! I think Father-In-Law read my mind, because he stripped down to his undershirt before taking on challenger #2. I was right about his serving technique. He was throwing down the spin-shots too. Father-In-Law was up to the test though, dishing out unstoppable power-shots one after another. The final tally had Father-In-Law up 2 games to 1, and thus he was crowned grand champion of the Friday morning retirees and people with nothing better do with their time. Heck, I was there, and I'm not retired. Although I may just have to retire from the world of ping pong while I still have my pride. It's the classy thing to do.

I told Father-In-Law that I will practice hard before our next meeting so that I can at least give him some competition. He laughed. It’s gonna take a lot of practice for me to get up to his level. Around 40 or 50 years I’d say. But hey, I've got nothing better to do. My dining room table is just begging to be turned into a playing field of some sort. It's either that or a giant Wheel of Fortune, and I don't think we could get Vanna White at such short notice. I don't know of any household-name Ping Pongers, so that being said, one of them should be free to drop by and teach yours truly how to take on Yoda, and become the King of the Ping.

What You See is What You Gut

2008-03-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and been greeted by lines of aquariums holding every fish species known to mankind? If you’ve never left Canada, of course you haven’t! Here in China, not only can you order fresh seafood, you can also hand-pick which sturgeon you’d like them to fry up for you. If you brought the kids along, they can even pet the fish before it’s gutted and cleaned and served up sechuan-style with a side of chow mein. It’s kind of like going to the touch pools at Marine Land with a cafeteria tray. Anything you think might look appetizing, you just net it, and forget it.

Sometimes, they’ll even bring the live fish up to your table in a bucket, just to make sure everything is satisfactory before they kill it. If you change your mind after the fish has been beheaded, you have to pay for it anyway. But, you get a nice bag of raw fish to take home with you as a reminder never to come to that restaurant again. In Sanya, down in Southern China, we changed our minds about one restaurant, after they led us to our unheated dining hut. It was after sunset, and it got mighty cold inside that windy little hut. I must say, it was definitely well-ventilated. Still, we changed our minds too late, after they had already “prepared” their specialty for us. Needless to say, there was a big argument, and we left with a small plastic bag filled with raw fish.

I know, I know, you can see the lobsters swimming around at restaurants back home, and point at the poor unlucky bastard you want to scarf down with melted butter, but I think my experience is a little different. To start with, it smells pretty darn bad in this “open ocean” restaurant. I’m glad our able was up on the 4th floor, away from all the fishy goodness. Some of the fish were more floating than swimming inside those putrid tanks, and their joyous scent was wafting throughout the main dining room. As a bonus though, you can also order marine fungus, which conveniently grows on the inside of all the aquariums, and probably feeds off the fish. Hell, you might as well eat the fungus, it got to the fish while it was still alive - well before you did!

A lot of these aquatic delicacies are new to me. I’ve never eaten a puffer fish or a skate. We usually just look at them in aquariums while sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s. Now, they’re on the freakin’ menu! I half expected to see a dolphin sitting in one of those little fishbowls. Ahh yes, dolphin meat is very low in fat. He spends all day jumping through flaming hula hoops, so he keeps himself pretty lean. Give it a try! I think their slogan would have to be “this dolphin’s for you!” Has a catchy little ring to it, eh?
So, if you ever walk into a restaurant and see a wall of aquariums holding everything from sea cucumbers to sea horses, please ask to speak to the manager, or Captain as it may be. I’m sure he can recommend the catch of the day, or at least of this month. I question the freshness of seafood when I see it floating in a glass coffin in front of me. Sure, you technically just killed it, but it was barely alive to begin with. I don’t know whether to eat it, or attempt CPR! Poor things have probably never even seen the sea. How then, can they be classified as seafood? Maybe they should just call it “Eating your pets” because I think I taught that trout a trick tonight. That’s right, I taught him to play dead. Wait, I think he already knew that one. Roll over? Roll over and die, maybe. Sit? Sorry, this food doesn’t sit well. You’re outta luck, mister. If you want live animals, try the pet store.

March 6th - DVD = Damaged Video Disk

2008-03-07T01:04:00.002-08:00

I told you a while back about our little trip to the shady DVD store. You know, the one with the DVD that got stuck in my wife’s laptop. Well, they have struck again. This time, I settled down to watch “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” – you know, with Brad Pitts and Ben Afflek’s little brother. I heard it was a good movie, so I picked it up for like 80 cents or whatever it cost at said fine retail establishment. In order to avoid getting stuck with a bunch of non-working dvds, we brought the laptop along to the store, and tried each one out before we made our purchases. Obviously we couldn’t sit there and watch the whole movie (although I suggested it, because then we wouldn’t have to buy it…), so we just caught the first scene to make sure the thing plays, video, audio and Su Su Sudio.

When I sat down to watch this movie last night, the first scene went by fine, but as soon as the actors started in on their dialogue, I noticed there were captions at the bottom. No problem, I’ll just go into the audio set up and turn the captions off. I tried this, but no dice. They stayed on, no matter how many times I went back and turned them off. Ok, there was a glitch. Then I looked closely at the captions. The first thing I read was, “Target acquired, should I fire?” okay, this was a Western afterall, and maybe somebody in the background said that and I missed it. I am a little hard of hearing. But then I started to read things like “You don’t step to this. I’m straight thuggin’ boy.” Wow, Brad Pitt is really working some magic with the suggested script! “He ain’t yo baby Daddy!” Woah! This is getting exciting! I didn’t know Jerry Springer existed in the 1800’s.

Just then, the movie switched to black & white, and the captions moved from the bottom of the screen, to the middle, conveniently covering Casey Afflek’s face. Ok. I can live with that. But why black & white? I ejected the disk and looked at it. On the top, everything looked legit, but when I turned it over, there was a strange burn mark on the middle of the disk, near the hole. That can’t be normal. I put it back in, and the captions were still ghetto fabulous. I don’t know which movie they mixed up the captions with, but it’s so ridiculous, that I want to see it now. I kept catching myself reading the captions and getting a good laugh. I was imagining Jesse James’ southern drawl saying “Check yoself fool!”

I finished watching the movie, but I think I’ll need to watch it again. My wife started watching it halfway through with me, and she had a bunch of questions. I tried to explain the story to her, but she kept saying “Who’s Tyrone?” and “I thought this was in Missouri not the Bronx.” Oh well, I kinda got two movies for the price of one. Maybe buying counterfeit dvds isn’t such a bad move. You get all the excitement of gunfights, horseback riding and saloon brawls, but if you get bored during the slow scenes, someone is always getting “capped” in the captions. “Yo Tyrone! Pass me the remote! My sister’s cousin is on Jerry Springer. You know, the one I had a baby with? Yeuh, she fine. Now run to the DVD store and pick me up a copy of The Pianist. I heard the captions is from Super Troopers! Baaaam!”

The Recovery Pt 2 / Cabin Feverish

2008-03-07T01:04:00.001-08:00

I think my wife is getting over her sickness now. Her temperature is down to a tidy 36 degrees, and she ate some breakfast today. Real breakfast, not judge sludgy rice soup. She was up and walking around earlier, and even decided not to wear her winter coat in the house. She was having hot and cold spells over the last day or so, but I think the worst is behind her now.

I, on the other hand, am starting to lose it. We haven’t left the apartment for 2 full days now, and I’m feeling a bit trapped. Physically, I feel perfectly fine, but I can’t leave. I have everything I need here; food, water, notebooks for complaining about my problems, but I’m kind of on an invisible leash here. I don’t even have a key, or the address, or the phone number, so if I go out there and get lost, they’d have to release the blood hounds to find me. “Will these dogs just FIND Nathan, or will they find and KILL him? What’s that officer? You’re trailing off.”

So, as I gaze out the window at the bustling city below, while my wife has her afternoon nap, I feel a big hankering to go outside and play. I’m like a kid with a new kite during a thunderstorm. And no, not Ben Franklin. If I’m cooped up for much longer, my brain will probably start looking like the fried egg in those late 80’s, DEA funded “This is your brain on drugs” commercials. Actually, some good drugs might hit the spot right about now. No dice. China isn’t as “hip” as Vancouver. You can’t just walk down East Hastings street over here and get offered crack, smack, H, blow, rock, powder, dust, rust, speed, cid, GHB, LSD, PCP, You down wit OPP, Oxycontin, Exstacy or wallpaper glue. Looks like I’m on my own. I’ll just sit back nd get lost in this crazy brain of mine.

“What’s that, talking gumball machine? There’s an armadillo tapping on the window? C’mon in little guy! But don’t make any noise, you’ll wake up the baby escalators.”

So, if you haven’t already guessed it, this is that part in The Shining where Jack loses it. I don’t think I’ll try to chop anybody up with an axe or anything, but I may just have a slight case of cabin fever. Bourbon, please. And leave the bottle, Jeeves.

March 5th - The Recovery

2008-03-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

As I write this, my wife is burning up, and there’s nothing I can do about it. No Nyquil, no Lemon Tea, not even my precious Buckley’s is available. We are about to venture into the strange realm of Chinese medicine. It turns out that my wife’s Aunt (not sure if they are actually related, or if it’s another “family friend” aunt type thing) is a doctor, and she recommended some medicine that will help bring the fever down. My job is to periodically take her temperature and play Forest Nightingump while trying to nurse her back to health.

I know we’re all in this to help her get better, but I get the slight feeling that Mother-In-Law is treating this like a competition between the two of us. Who loves you more, your husband, or your mother? All I can really do is talk to my wife, run a needs analysis (thank you marketing 101) now and then and offer my love & support. Mother-In-Law has just entered the room with a pharmaceutical cocktail for my wife to swallow down. She took it like a soldier, but a few minutes later, I could hear her puking up the pills, along with anything else that was still inside her. She’s barely eaten anything, so I imagine she’s in pain right now. We all know what a dry-heave fells and sounds like. I imagine the best thing for her right now would be a good night’s sleep. She asked if I could lie down next to her. It would help her sleep. It’s only about 9:00, but I climbed into bed anyway. Maybe an early night would be good for me too. Couldn’t hurt.

I woke up at 6:30 the next morning and felt my wife’s forehead. She wasn’t feeling as hot, but her face looked kinda clammy. She came around, and I asked to take her temperature. We have one of those old school mercury thermometers, the kind you stick under your armpit. I got her a glass of hot water while waited 5 minutes for her armpit to perculate. When I checked the little glass vial, it read 38 degrees Centigrade. A little warm. Mother-In-Law was up now, and entered our room to check on her daughter. The exchanged a few words, and my wife told me she was going to see the doctor today, and I was to stay home. I don’t know if that was her decision or her mother’s, but either way I stayed put.

A couple hours later, they returned. My wife looked worse than before. “The took blood outta me,” she said weakly. I walked her to our room and helped her into bed. She fell asleep almost instantly. A few minutes later, the maid knocked on the door to tell us that lunch was ready. I just noticed I was starving. Amid all the medical melee, breakfast had slipped my mind. I helped my wife out of bed and suggested she eat something. After I give blood, they always give me cookies to help get the juices flowing again and all that. She had a small bowl of congee, a sort of mushy rice soup. She requested some ice cream, but her mother told her to avoid sweets. I fed her some vegetables, which I thought would help restore her iron, but mother gave me a scornful look. Only congee. Ahh well, mother knows best.

After we attempted to eat lunch, I helped my poor wife back to bed and tucked her in. She told me that she’s been sick 3 times so far in this young 2008. What could cause this sudden rash of sickness? She’s usually quite healthy. Guess what he doctor told her. The pollution is making her sick. They took a swab from her throat , which didn’t look good. It’s probably a result of the toxins in the air and water. That explains it. Vancouver is so nice and green, with a few old growth trees still kicking around, and tons of green space right in the city to help cleanse the air we breathe. I guess we’re lucky that the citizens stood up to industry there, and said “Put your mills somewhere else – not in our backyard.” Now that I think about it, my wife and I both got sick when we visited my parents in Saint John, NB too. Here in Harbin, the air quality is pretty bad, and once we get back to Vancouver, her chances for recovery will likely increase.

For now, she's sleeping away, and I’m just trying to give her some space. I’ve vacated the bedroom in favour of the living room, where ironically, I have a perfect view of the smoky skyline. I’ll keep you posted on the recovery efforts, but for now, I’ll thank you not to disturb the patient. Visiting hours are now closed. I’m just gonna sneak in and close the window. I think she’s had enough “air” for one day.

The Big 5-0/ I'm feeling a bit restricted.

2008-03-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that this blog hit 50 entries as of yesterday. I had originally set out to write 1 entry per day, but I guess I went a bit overboard with it. Once you lose your mind, it's difficult to find it again. I still have some time left before I head back to our Home & Native Land, so I just wanted to thank you Mr & Mrs Reader for coming along on this crazy journey with me.

One other thing I wanted to comment on was, well, comments. I have discovered that over here in China, there is quite a bit of censorship/restrictions when it comes to public internet use. I think this includes reading the blogs of private citizens, just in case they write something deflammatory towards the current government or say something that goes against the grain of Chinese society. That being said, I haven't been able to view my blog or any of the comments that are left. I can't even tell if I have comments (I hope I do) until I get back to Canada.

I heard a little story that, if you type certain words on MSN Messenger over here, they just vanish when you hit "Enter". For example, there was a Chinese politician who was suspected of accepting bribes, and escaped to Canada. Can't remember his name, but you may have heard of him. I haven't signed in to my messenger account once since arriving in China, for fear that somebody out there is monitoring my discussions. I'm even hesitant to use my personal email account. So, if you sent me an email and I haven't gotten back to you, please be patient and I'll contact you as soon as I get back. I don't have access to the internet every day, so I try to use my limited time to update this blog as often as possible. Writing an entry is no problem. I just can't tell if it's been "Edited" or not. Scary, no? Something we don't think of back in the true north strong and FREE.

So, thanks for reading, and maybe I'll go buy my blog a birthday cake or something. I'm gonna have to hold the candles up really close to that little fan in the back of the computer, but hopefully I won't get too much frosting on the flash drive.

March 2nd - She has the Flu, She has the Flute

2008-03-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

I woke up early this morning to do some exercising. I have the benefit of a treadmill right here in our apartment, which has come in handy on this trip, what with all the rich food & booze I've been enjoying. I was careful not to make any noise as I got out of bed. I figured my wife could use a snooze, so I didn't want to wake her.

After my run, I went in to chack on Sleeping Beauty. She didn't look too well. As she sat up, she told me her stomach was bothering her, and she didn't feel like having breakfast. She's usually a good eater, so this worried me a bit. I told her to go back to sleep, and she followed my orders. Her forehead felt a bit hot, too. not a good sign. I wondered out loud if we should cancel our dinner plans for tonight, but she said she could battle through, and of course we had a flute recital she didn't want to miss. So, after her nap, we got ready to walk over to cousin's house where the concert was to be held. At first, I objected to leaving the house. My wife didn't look too well. But, she said she was fine and wanted some fresh air anyway. On the 5-minute walk, I found myself propping her up most of the way, my arms wrapped around her like a seatbelt.

We arrived at Cousin Clotheshorse's place, and Niecy was excited to see us. She looked different today. Something with her hair, I'm not sure. I'm no good at noticing things like that. She could have had a nose job for all I know. She greeted us with a smile, and led us into the living room, where she proudly assembled her long, silver flute. She got right to it & began playing. My god, she was good! She started off with a classical piece that I unfortunately didn't recognize, then a traditional Chinese piece, and finally, she told me that she was going to play the themesong from Titanic, "My Heart Will Go On". Now, I'm not a huge fan of Celyn Dion. Actually I find her chest-pounding and overacting a bit annoying, but through this shiny metal cylinder attached to this girl's lips, it sounded beautiful. I gave her a standing ovation. She looked so happy.

After the concert was over, we were rushed out the door to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Niecy looked a little nervous on the car-ride. She sat next to me in the car, and I noticed that her hand was shaking a little. "I liked your playing," I said. "Oh, thank you," she beemed. There. I think that took the edge off a little. In some ways, she is like a scared little girl trapped inside a young woman's body. She seems so unsure of herself, but she ought not to be.

Now, back to my ill wife. I felt so bad for her. "Maybe we should just go home," i said. "no, it's okay. i want to be here," she groaned. I thought she was just being polite. "Let's go home, honestly," I begged. But she just sat down at the table, not eating anything, all the while looking miserable. I tried to do the husbandly thing, you know offering her my jacket in case she was cold, topping up her water glass and offering to take her home, but she refused.

It turns out there was an alterior motive for this dinner. Mother-In-Law has some friends with a son around the same age as our niece, and she was just dying to play Cupid, and introduce them. i don't know how arranged marriages work, but this seemed very awkward. Bachelor #1 was carted in amid lots of handshakes and how-do-you-do's. The whole time I kept sneaking looks over at Niecy, to guage her reaction. She did not look herself. She was sitting extremely upright, and I think I saw her hands shaking again. Then, all of a sudden she got up and quietly assembled her flute. She was going to perform for us again! She said, in perfect English, "This is called My Heart Will Go On. It's Nathan's favourite." Only my wife and I understood her, so she said it again, in Chinese. She began playing with such gusto; moving gracefully with the sweet melodies. She was owning this performance, and making her uncle proud! We all clapped, and when she returned to her seat, I gave her a high-five.

All throughout dinner, there was a strange feeling in the air. Bachelor #1 barely looked at his "date" during her performance, and the two hadn't exchanged a single word since the how-do-you-do's. I decided to interject, and attempt to break the ice. "Do you speak any English?" I asked him. He told me that his English was very bad, but did manage to tell me his name, age, and where he goes to school. Basically name, rank and serial number. "Great," I said. Then I told him my name, where I'm from and how much I enjoyed this country of his. Then I looked over at niecy, and my wife made a nod from her to Bachelor Boy, a sort of "talk to him" in pantomime. It's obvious that he wasn't going to make a move. She looked around, whetted her lips and started to speak. But it wasn't to her date. She said, "Nathan, I want to know how to spell your name." "Got a pen?" I asked. Never mind, I spelled it out loud for her (N-A-T-H-A-N, in case you were wondering) and she smiled, adding that she liked her tea, and did I like mine. I smiled and nodded. My little scheme had failed.

I'm flattered that this girl wanted to make small talk with me, but now is not the time nor the place! She should be getting to know the fellow to her right. You know, finding out if she'd like to marry him and all that. I don't know how these sort of things work though. Maybe they have to play croquet or sacrifice a pig before they exchange words. The Bachelor's father proposed a toast, and I obliged, downing a small glass of hot Chinese wine. Yikes! Everyone had a good laugh, as it turns out it was a "sipping wine". I was burned in more ways than one.

I noticed to my left, that my wife's condition was getting progressively worse. She was now doubled-over with her head on the dinner table. Ok, this time I'm finished negotiating. "Do you want me to take you home?" I said sternly. This was not a question in the classic sense. "But I ordered you a Bibimbap (Korean rice dish)," she said. Look, I don't care if you ordered me Billy The Kid, we're leaving. I took a couple last bites to show her I was thankful for her ordering it for me, then I thanked everyonefor dinner, got our coats and walked my ailing wife to the elevator. On the way out, I thanked my niece for the performance. "Maybe you will call me?" she asked, making the telephone sign with her long, flautist's fingers. "I don't know how to use a Chinese telephone. It's better that I don't." I thought. "Call her," I said, pointing to my wife. I helped her into the lift and walked her around the corner to her mother's apartment, doing the human seatbelt thing again. Once we got home, I put her into bed, and she used her last ounce of strength to call a doctor, who happens to be a friend of her mother's. The Doc suggested some medicine, which the maid just ran out to get. I'm crossing my fingers for ya, honey. Nobody likes to get sick, especially on their vacation. I've been there, and they don't put hospitals on postcards, that's for sure.

March 1st 2008 - You Might Say It's In My Jeans

2008-03-03T23:10:00.001-08:00

Today we went clothes shopping, and as a role-reversal, I was the buyer and my wife the hanger-on. Her cousin, the clotheshorse of the family, knows all the hot spots and possesses a true gift when it comes to knocking down the price of things. I've come to discover that unless you are in a department store, everything is negotiable in these parts. I was after a couple pair of pants and my wife suggested I buy a new jacket as well. Since I've dropped a couple of sizes over the years, my beloved waist-length army jacket looks like a camoflaged weather balloon on me.

We were on our way to pick up Cousin Clotheshorse, when my wife told me her neice would be coming along too. Cool! More family! In China, people my age belong to the "Only Child Generation" - there is a single birth-rule for every family. I mean, it's not like they kill your 2nd born, but you have to pay a fine for every additional child. I guess it's to ease the burden on a developing country. This rule came into effect after our parents would have been born. I guess the baby boom was happening all over the world, not just at home. With no immediate siblings, this means that cousins, neices and nephews are closer than ever. I think that's pretty cool, especially since my 2 best friends growing up happen to be cousins, but we were often mistaken for 3 brothers.

The last time my wife saw her neice, she was a short, pudgy little girl whose fat rolls everyone used to pinch. Not anymore! i was taken aback when I saw this beautiful girl towering over my wife, hugging her like a power forward hugs a point guard in the WNBA. I couldn't believe my eyes. The resemblance was uncanny! Aside of course from the extra 6 inches or so in height. I was immediately ordered to stand back-to-back with this girl, who was only an inch or two shorter than me. Everyone back home is always saying how short Asian girls are. Actually this one friend of mine said there are 2 things he would miss if he moved to China: His Mom's cooking, and tall girls. Well, our little neice is just an average Northern Chinese girl, who are on average taller than the rest of the country's girls. After our introduction & measuring, my wife translated for me that my niece doesn't speak English very well, but was glad to meet me.

The 4 of us all headed out into the brisk Harbin morning (Cousin Clotheshorse, Big Neice, my wife and I). I was told we were headed for the Underground Market - literally. We walked down what looked like a subway entrance, through some tarps hanging in the doorway (to keep the heat in) and into a food court. It reminded me of a meat locker, but the smells inside told me that the meat was rancid. I held my nose as we passed the "mystery-meat-on-a-stick" and "What's That? in a bowl" stands, and entered a giant hall of various clothing and dirt merchants. You can tell right away that you should disregard all brand names here. Everything is of the highest knock-off quality.

Cousin Clotheshorse, or C.C. as I'll call her, once owned a clothing store in another city, so she knows how to spot shotty material, weak stitching, and can tell you what the real value of any article is, never mind what the tag says. If the retailer tries to tell us the base cost for something, C.C. calls them on their lie. She told us that jeans never cost more than 80-100 yuan a pair when you buy them wholesale. In one store, they were marked up to 280 a pair, and the salesmen wouldn't budge much, so we moved on. I spotted a pair of dark blue jeans I liked, and so I asked if I could try them on.

Well, at the Underground Market, fitting rooms are a luxury not every merchant can afford, let me tell you. If you are lucky, they'll let you step back into the gap behind their back wall so you can strip down among the tepid water and rat feces. At the very least, they would provide you with a tattered sheet to drape over yourself while pantsless. However, the accomodations were less than inviting at one store. "Uhh, you can stand behind that rack, I guess," said the salesman. What a cheeky bastard. But no, I would soon find out that I was the one who was about to be cheeky. The rack only covered me from the other people in the store. Anyone walking down the hallway could see my undies from this vantage point. The shopkeep probably thought it would attract business. Well, I was certainly attracting attention. I think ol' cousin and niecy stuck a peek, but then again, who could blame them? Here I was on display for all of the underground society to see.

After trying on a few more pairs of jeans in this manner, I settled on 2 pairs that I liked and we were moving on to jackets. As I said before, I had in-grown (is that the opposite of out-grown?) my beloved army jacket and I was thinking of something in the leather department. Nothing too bikery, more classy like in The Matrix or something. I tried on a few, but nothing really stirred my martini, so to speak. Then, in the second to last shop in the place, I spotted a dark brown zippered number with my name on it. Now, I was briefed back in a previous store (pun intended, very intended) on the art of haggling, and the trick is to never look too impressed by anything you want to buy. In other words, act like you don't really want this piece of clothing, but you might be persuaded to buy it. "I guess it's pretty okay," I said, handing it back to the merchant. "280 Yuan," she said. "C'mon, let's go," said C.C., and the games had begun. The further we walked, the lower the price fell, until we were so far away, we could just barely make out a faint "200" echoing down the cavernous hallway. We turned back, purchased the jacket, and all had a good laugh. That is, except for Madame Shopkeep. She looked quite angry.

Now, a shirt was needed to accompany my new jacket and pants. I looked ina couple of shops, but everything looked so metrosexual to me. I dunno, men's shirst seem very flamboyant and flashy over here, all frilly and V-necked. i saw one little number I liked, and asked if I could try it on. "Go ahead," said the merchant. I could tell that a fitting room was out of the question. So, here I was half-naked again standing in this little clothing shop amid the stares and whispers of generall gawkers, and I'm proud to say, a female admirer or two. I guess tattoos aren't very common over here, because cousin and niece asked if they could have another look/touch. I don't have the world's most meaningful or thought-provoking tattoos or anything, but I could tell this was a new discovery for them. Needless to say, I didn't buy any of those blouses, so we left with what we had.

I emerged from the depths of the underground market with 2 pairs of comfy jeans and a brand new genuine leatherish jacket. Not a bad day, overall. The most interesting part of my day though, was the introduction of a new character into my little story. My new niece was really something, I thought. When we went back home, I got a chance to talk to her a bit and do some background research. It turns out that her English isn't half bad afterall! She was just a bit shy at first. After seeing me strip down to my skivvies, I think the shyness shoe was on the other foot now, and she started to loosen up around me.

I found out that she is 20 years old, a film student here in Harbin, and she is a flautist. She showed me some pictures of her playing flute on her cellphone. I also learned that her father sadly passed away 5 years ago. This girl actually broke down and cried when she was talking about him. That takes guts, people. To open up emotionally like that in front of someone you've only just met a few hours ago, that takes guts. My wife and cousin consoled her with hugs, kisses and tissues, and she was back to her smiling self again a little later.

I'm glad I got to meet my niece. I see a lot of stories in her. I don't know, it's wierd to see people as characters and subject matter and all that, but I just get the feeling that this person is interesting and has a story to tell. My wife and I planned to get together with her again tomorrow, and she promised to bring her flute and play us a song.

March 1st - Beijing in Retrospect

2008-03-02T23:25:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm back in harbin, I guess I have a chance to look back on my little excursion to Beijing. I picked up on a couple of things while there: 1) This is a city that is rich in history and culture and; 2) Beijing is becoming more and more commercialized ever day.

After speaking with a couple of locals, the ones who could answer me, I got the feeling that Beijing is the place to go if you're looking to make a quick buck, but definitely not a place to settle down for most people. There is heavy demand in the I.T. sector here, as many U.S. and European software companies have set up offices in Beijing. So like I said, make a quick buck and get the hell out. To start with, it's very touristy. I used to feel like a Novelty Act in Harbin, being the only paleface around for miles. "Step right up, folks. Come see the abominable white man in all his pasty glory!". Here in Beijing, I see whole packs of Germans, Australians, and Americans. You can tell where they are from by their little flag carried by the tour guide up front. If you get lost in the crowded streets, just look for those Broad Stripes and Bright Stars and play follow the leader.

I mention the crowded streets, but it's more like crowded street(singular). Wangfujing Street is a pedestrian-only zone lined with gift shops, English signs and no chance of being run over. Unlike in the other streets, where a "walk" sign is just a suggestion. "Walk, if you feel lucky." At night, Wangfujing street is like a Ghost Town. We walked through at 11PM when the shops are all closed, and there were only a few perfect strangers walking around. It was a pretty tranquil way to end our day.

The next morning though, it was like someone opened the great flood gates at the salmon-spawning site. As usual, I found myself going against the grain, or in this case, against the scales? I'm fighting my way upstream and squeezing between fatso American tourists and throaty Pasisian bimbos who smell like a perfume factory exploded in their general vacinity. It was like a big human stew, with Canadian as a garnish. It really reminded me how few Canadians there are in the world. I felt unique.

Just then, I saw someone wearing a Labbat's baseball cap from behind. I wanted to get closer to see if he was a fellow Canuck, but when he turned around, I was a bit confused. The first thing that caught my eye was his huge gut. Okay, I know a few Canadians who go a little overboard with the Timmy's now and then. I used to fit that bill, actually. But then I noticed what was covering his gut, or at least trying to. He was wearing a "Harley Davidson USA" T-shirt. Either this guy is generally confused, or he's an American tourist posing as a Canadian. I've heard of them, and to be completely honest, I smelled a Yankee. I decided to avoid a confrontation during which I probably would have grilled the poor guy on Provincial Capitals and Grade 4 Social Studies. There probably are a few Canadians here, but I think we're less obvious than that.

Getting around in Beijing can either be very easy, or very mind-numbing, depending on the time of day. Since try not to get out of bed before 8:30 whilst on vacation, I haven't experienced the morning commute at its peak. When we hopped on the subway at 11AM, it was pretty relaxed. But my, how quickly things change. I heard a little joke from a local. He said: "At 5 o'clock, Beijing is the world's biggest parking lot." He's right, too. We were meeting my wife's friends for dinner one night, and it took us a 30 minute taxi ride from the subway station to the restaurant, which ironically is the same length of time it would have taken on foot, according to the nice fellow who gave us directions.

So, in my conclusion, I have found Beijing to be a city of constant change. On one hand, you have the transformation of once sacred, untouched historical sites into money-making tourist attractions; On the other, you see a constant beautification process, brought on by the pressure to keep up with the rest of the modern world, plus the Olympics coming 5 months from now. If you are afraid of change, you would probably be afraid to leave your tiny, overpriced flat in Beijing.

I'm no expert on this subject, mind you. Heck, I only spent 4 days in Beijing. I didn't even scratch the surface of all the things to see & do. These are merely my opinions based on what I saw, and the information I gathered from the locals in my brief visit. If you go to Beijing tomorrow, you'll probably have an entirely different experience from mine. One thing's for sure though - being there made me crave some quiet R&R. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Being a tourist is tiring! I think I'll retire from it for a while after this trip is over.

Feb 29th - Peking & Choosing

2008-03-02T21:01:00.001-08:00

When you go to Beijing, you have to eat duck, or so I'm told anyway. There is one restaurant that has been serving up the Beijing Peking Duck since the 1800's and boy, do they know their stuff. Since today is our last day in Beijing, and we have a train to catch tonight, we decided to just loaf around and maybe do dinner and a movie. The dinner would be duck, no doubt about it, and don't worry about the bill.

Now I'm not prepared to write a Siskel & Ebert (RIP Siskel) review of Attonement, so I'll just tell you that it was a good story, and looked like a good representation of the WWII period. There was one shot that blew my mind. After the British soldiers fought the Germans back and France was safe, the director showed the aftermath of this huge battle on the coast. This one shot must have lasted 5 minutes, and the main thing you got from it was the emotion those soldiers must have been feeling. Some were wandering around, losing their minds, lots were drunk, and every one of them looked homesick. Without a single line spoken in that sequence, I felt all those emotions.That's good cinema. But enough about the movie - it's time to eat!

This next part is not for the squeamish - or the vegetarian. I'm taking you to the Beijing Duck Restaurant, and I hope you brought your appetite. Everything here, and I do mean everything, has duck in it. "Can I have a glass of water?" "You want duck with that?" We ordered 1/2 a roast duck with scallions and flour tortillas. Again with the Chinese burritos, the filling was 100% pure mallard. I'm such a lucky duck!

A knife-wielding masked man snuck up behind me, pushing a squeaky cart that was built for one thing - transporting the carcasses of our dearly departed ducks. He sharpened up his tools and went to work. He carved and snapped and sawed away flesh from bone - the heavenly juices dripping all over his white uniform. I think the purpose of the mask was to catch his drool. My mouth was watering like a drain spout, so I can imagine what his must be doing. He plated up our meat and then BLAM! He chopped poor Daffy's head in half, right down the middle. It made a sort of twig-snapping sound. Inside was a perfect cross-section of its brain. I felt guilty for maybe 30 seconds, until the first bite hit my mouth. Who's Daffy again? Oh right, he's dinner!

After we finished our mouth-watering mallard, I felt the urge to fly ina V-line back to our hotel and sit down for a while. We collected our bags and prepared to head for the train station to begin our journey back to Harbin. We arrived at the station early. About 2 hours early, actually. We could have walked around the city some more, but it was too risky to go anywhere too far at the last minute, in case we got stuck in traffic and missed our train. So, we sat in a coffee shop and nursed a couple of drinks for 2 hours, until train Z15 was ready to roll.

I usually can't sleep on planes, trains or buses. I don't know why, I just find it difficult. Maybe it's the constant motion, or the smell of human uncleanliness, which is very common on this train. I know I showered today, can't speak for the other people on this train. it smells a bit like the animal reserve I visited in Hainan a couple of weeks ago. So, to battle the no-sleep Blues, my wife and I stayed up and played "Rock & Roll Trivia" for a bit. After we turned out the lights, I started listening to these History lectures on tape. I stayed awake until about 4AM when the battery died on my Ipod. What a feeling that was! I finished all of my candy too, so there was nothing else to do. I buried my head in my dusty pillow and closed my eyes. No snoring bunkmate this time, and no sweltering heat. I was closest to the heat control, and I had it cranked to zero. I actually managed to doze off. What a relief!

i was blasted awake with the sun burning my eyes like a poison. You know the feeling. The sun was rising outside the window directly across from my bunk, and there was no curtain to draw closed. Might as well get up. I could tell we must be getting close to Harbin now. People were shuffling around, getting their luggage sorted out and not showering. There was some sort of distorted announcement on the P.A. and the train started to slow down. I slipped my jeans on over my shorts and stood up. Wooooaaaaahhh! Guess I don't have my sae legs, or rail legs yet. I wobbled down the hallway to the bathroom and pissed all over the floor. Some wise guy decided to take a corner at the exact moment I unleashed my overnight buildup. Conductors are all such cut-ups. They were probably watching me on some hidden toilet in the bar of soap. Thanks guys!

We pulled in at harbin Station and I quickly gathered my things and headed off the train. Holy Mackeral it was cold outside! I forgot that Harbin is about 10 degrees colder than Beijing. I started jogging towards the exit. My wife said her hands were cold so I grabbed her suitcase to speed things up. "Do you have your ticket?" she asked. My ticket? What, I have to show my ticket again? With all my lack of sleep and white man confusion, I think I crumpled up my ticket and tossed it somewhere back on the train. My wife appealed to the security guard, but he said I had to run back and retrieve it, or else buy another ticket. Shit. I bolted.

Luckily, the train was still sitting there, and the guy at the door understood that I forgot something. I knew we were in car 16, so I ran to the door with a 15/16 sign above it. Shit, is this 16 or is that? The entrance is between the two cars. Did I just pass the lower numbers or the higher ones on my sprint down the landing? I knew I was in bed #7, but there was no ticket anywhere. I looked in the garbage can, on the floor, under the bed, in the ashtray. Wait a minute... I don't smoke. There are butts in this tray. I'm in the wrong car!

i ran up to the next car, bed #7 and there was my crumpled ticket, lying on the bed. I got off the train with my recovered ticket, and about 2 seconds later, the train started rolling away. Man was I ever lucky. My wife was walking toward me with the original security guard who had stopped us at the exit. She said he decided he would let me off this time if I couldn't manage to find it. "Well," I thought. "I needed the exercise anyway." It's 20 below, my lungs are burning, my teeth feel funny, and we can finally leave the train station. What a day already! And it's only 7:30. What's next?

Feb 28th - The Emperor's New Skates

2008-03-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

We have a busy day ahead of us. It's all fun stuff, but I'm starting to realize that being a tourist can be tiring! First off, we went out for breakfast, which I must say was quite scrumptious. I never imagined that breakfast burritos were popular over here, but you'll find whole restaurants dedicated to wraps. You just sit down, choose your fillings, and wrap it up. We had roasted pork, fried eggs, bean sprouts, potatoes and green onion in ours. Just writing this is making me hungry again. I'll try to wrap this up as soon as possible.

After breakfast, we hopped on the subway train. We literally hopped too, as there is about a 6 inch gap between the platform and the train. This was an adventure worth telling about. The subway is a pretty inexpensive form of transportation here in Beijing. 2 Yuan will take you just about anywhere in the city. None of this paying extra for more "zones" crap like back in Vancouver. My wife is putting me to the test today. She's making me go up to the little window to purcahse our tickets. It might sound easy in principle, but for an Anglophone like me, even remembering the word for "two" can be difficult. It's doubly hard when they use different number systems depending on what you're counting. If it's two tickets, you say "Liang zhang piao". If counting, you say Ee, Ar meaning 1,2. Wierd, huh?

Now that we have our tickets, it's time to board the train. Here's something odd: they have people working on the platform who have the simple job of pushing, that's right pushing people onto the train. Back home, bus drivers will politely say "Move to the back please". In Beijing, it's more like "You don't wanna move to the back, then I'm gonna do it for you. We can fit another 30 or so people on this train, guys."

We reached our destination after about 20 minutes in Sardinia. Somebody on that train was a boozer, because even at this early hour, I could smell the sauce. We got off the train, walked up the hundred or so stairs and were on the street. We were looking for Tiantan park - the site of a few temples, museums and things. Oh, and it's also the main hangout for Senior Citizens to like to sing opera, dance and play strange instruments that you won't find at Long & McQuade. We walked down this long hallway, which I'll call "Music Alley". I was strolling through a crowd of people just as the music started, and I discovered that I was in the middle of a Senior Citizens' Dance Party, or Retro Boogie, if you will. I busted out a couple of moves, to the applause of the locals, and then I did the "Walk like an Egyptian" off the dancefloor. I always like to leave on a high note.

After Arthritic Electric Circus, we walked around to the Emperor's Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. Now, I'm not a religious guy, quite the opposite in fact, but I guess Ancient China was full of tablet thumpers who believed in all sorts of legends, folklore, and worshipping things like sheep, corn, the sun and the moon. The big round temple was at the crest of a big hill, so you could see a panoramic view of the city of Beijing. Boy, that view must have looked a lot different in the old days when the temple was first built. There was probably less smog and not as many "Beijing 2008 Olympics" billboards.

We walked around some more and stumbled upon the "Echo Wall", a place that music nerds and audio engineers would love. It's a perfectly round wall, and when inside, people can stand on opposite sides of the ring and hear each other's voice perfectly. This sounds pretty interesting in principle, but when 50 or 60 people are trying to do it simultaneously, you get a frightening mix of yells, mostly from the dude standing next to you, screaming at the top of his lungs. Wait a minute, that's the rummy from the subway! And I'm pretty sure he's here alone. Yeah that's him alright. I'd recognize that lovely aroma anywhere. Sort of a mix of Gin, dirty laundry and cigarette butts. His smell was echoing inside my nose, so I figured it was time to leave.

I was getting hungry now, so I figured it was time to grab a snack. You can buy street meat all over this city - lamb skewers, shrimp, even strawberries and pineapples on a stick. I had 3 lamb skewers and i was all set for our evening workout. We were going ice skating!

My wife's cousin is a figure skating teacher at a popular rink here in Beijing. She's damn good too! Apparently she was the Chinese National Champoin a few years back, and just missed going to the Olympics in favour of someone younger. She was busy giving a lesson, but she made sure we were given skates, and granted access to the ice. What a feeling! When you've skated maybe once in the last decade, it's kind of awkward when you step on that ice again. Needless to say, I didn't attempt any triple axles or inverted sow cows. i just did a couple hundred laps, mostly of the forward persuasion. My wife was still a little sore from climbing the Great Wall the day before, so she wasn't as enthusiastic as me. Her cousin was flying around, teaching a young girl how to prance and dance on ice. Actually, she has a 9-year old daughter, who strapped on the skates to join us, but only after she finished doing her homework in her mom's office out back.

The daughter, whose name is Vivian by the way, was pretty talented. I guess when you get to be a rink rat every day, you pick up a thing or two. She was trying to teach me stuff, but I used the old excuse that I didn't want to fall because I on'y brought one pair of pants. Thats the truth! But also, I have a certain reputation to uphold. I am Canadian afterall. We are all born with hockey hair, no teeth and 9 months in the box, and here on the international stage, I wouldn't want to upset my fellow countrymen. I would probably be fined upon my return to Canada, and maybe I'd be banned from watching hockey for 1 year or something.

After we finished Dizzy on Ice, it was time for dinner. I was starving, too. Those 3 mystery meat sticks a gobbled earlier didn't quite fill me up. Somehow I knew though, that I would need to save room for dinner. Oh, and it was glorious. We went to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Back home, I've been known to haunt the local sushi joints, and they know they're going to lose money when they see me walk in and then woddle out an hour or two later. I think you call that "Economies of Scale", although the scale is now broken, thanks to all the sushi.

With full bellies, we trotted across the street to cousin's apartment. Upstairs, little Vivian brought me a big bowl of ice cream. Jesus! What was I gonna do with this? I politely accepted it, and hey, there's always room for dessert. I'm on vacation aren't I? We hung out for a little while until I started to fall into a sushi-induced coma, and then we took off, heading again for the subway. I hope they don't push me too hard this time. I might pop! And nobody wants a sushi shower at this time of night.

Feb 27 - Nate The Great Wall Climber

2008-03-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

We awoke at 6AM today, as we were getting picked up by a tour guide at 7, and were warned not to be late. I'm tired. I went to bed around midnight, so unless the fatigue and sleep deprivation has affected my math skills, that's 3 hours sleep in the last 2 nights. Sheesh! If I had known that the tour guide was going to be a full hour late, I could have slept in until 7. That would work out to 5 hours I think. Either that or the battery on my calculator needs charging.

We booked an English tour, so I was expecting to see a bus-load of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed foreigners. If I was lucky, I might see another Canadian so we could talk canoes or compare sasquatch sighting stories. But no, as usual I was the only whitey in the group. I'm used to this feeling, but then the tour guide started off on her schpeal, in Chinese, with no English translation! What gives?!? Luckily, my wife translated the important stuff for me, like "That's the tree where Emperor So and So hung himself." You know, a real feel-good story. When the bus stopped for a bathroom break, my wife and I confronted the guide. We were under the impression that it was an English tour. We paid an extra 20 Yuan for English, now I want my English! And put a little English on that with a side of English. My wife demanded we be reimbursed 40 Yuan, and the guide offered 20, witha promise to speak English from now on. It's not what we paid for, but I guess it's better than nothing. "Wait," she says. "Please don't tell the others how much you paid." Because we booked online, we saved about 100 Yuan each. Now wait a minute. Why the hell should we lie for her? We had to haggle the English out of her! Oh well, let's just get on with the tour. I've got a wall to climb!

Before the Great Wall, we were going to visit the burial site of the 13 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. You'd think it would be depressing, but let me tell ya, these guys have pretty graves. I don't think they made off to badly. The archaeologists found tons of gold, silver, jade, and of course the remains of several dozen concubines aka hookers who were buried alive with the emperors. There was one emperor though, who was kind of a ladies man. He was more into drinking Crystoll with his bitches that leading the nation and all that "official" jazz. So, he abolished the dead hooker burials for all future emperors. Looks like they'll be lonely in the afterlife. I hope they at least brought a book to read or something!

We putted around the burial site some more, looking at the craftsmanship and all that. There are these tree trunks holding up one of the buildings that are as round as Michael moore and as tall as Godzilla. They even kept their original colour after all these years. That was cool. My dad would be into this. He's always bragging about his stash of "teak" - a highly valuable type of lumber. Most people buy RRSP's to help save for retirement. Not the old man. A stack of rare lumber is more up his alley. Even the bricks at the burial site had an interesting story. The name of the brick maker is stamped on every single brick surrounding the temple. If the emperor saw that the bricks were crumbling, or just weren't up to snuff as far as bricks go, he'd have the guy offed! If it was me, I'd just tell him to hit the bricks and never return. Get outta town Bricky!

We left the burial site, and on the way out, the tour guide told me that pretty much everything we saw today was a duplicate. The original site was destroyed by American and British soldiers in the 1800's. Way to spoil the party guys! I guess it was competing with Disneyland and Eurodisney back then. You mess with Disney, you'd better duck, Donald.

Next up, we went to a Jade factory. You know, the jewellry, It's kind of green, but not as dark as sapphire. The tour guide at the factory didn't speak English, so I just wandered around and touched stuff. Again, it turned out that I was at the mall. Everything in the factory was for sale, and they were "Craaaazy about low prices!" Well, I guess I'm crazy too, for not taking advantage of factory prices. I don't know, I'm just not a jewelry kinda guy. Heck, I take my wedding ring off sometimes, and No it's not for that reason. What a dirty mind you have, dirty mind. I guess I just didn't set out today thinking "Boy I'd like to buy a green bracelet today! Any ideas?"

We ate a delicious lunch and then it was time for the moment of truth - The Great Wall of China. Here's an interesting little tidbit for ya: At the time of the Wall's construction, it took 100,000 workers to slap the whole thing together. At the time, this was 1/5 the population of China. And unlike Ikea furniture, it didn't come with those funny instructions that show cartoon people stubbing their toes and looking bewildered, then finally calling in for assistance. These guys were hard core, and lots of them died in the process. There are hundreds of bodies buried beneath the stones of the Great Wall. How would you like to spend your entire afterlife letting people walk all over you?

We had roughly 2 hours to be back at the parking lot, and I had my sights set on the highest point of this section of Wall. It looked like a steep climg, but heck, I've climbed the Grouse Grind back in Vancouver enough times to make this look like child's play. My wife was not quite as pumped. I felt kinda bad for leaving her behind, but she said "Go ahead" and I was off to the races. I made it to the top, bought my "I climbed the Great Wall" T-Shirt and I was loving it. I closed my eyes and pictured the early days, with all the sentrys in their shiny armour, watching the hills for Mongol intruders. They must have been in immaculate physical condition, just from climbing this staircase every day. I was sweating from the climb, but just imagine climbing 40 or 50 flights of stairs wearing a suit of plate mail and carrying a 10 foot spear with you. That's what I call endurance. Whoever got posted to the Badaling entrance of the Great Wall must have been truly made of steel.

I stopped a few times, snapping pictures both for myself and anyone else who asked. Heck, I'm a good sport. I even wore my Vancouver Canucks T-Shirt today just so I could have my picture taken wearing the Canucks logo on the Great Wall of China. Hopefully that picture will end up at a bus stop somewhere in Vancouver and some kid will draw a mustache on me or write "I like Men" in a bubble next to my head. Ahhh to be famous.

I made it back to the bus on time, running down the last section with my wife, who I met halfway down. At least she tried. I gotta give her that. Plus, she made an error in footwear judgement. Here's a tip for anyone climbing the Great Wall: Wear comfortable shoes! My wife was wearing her winter boots, but she was leap years ahead of one wingnut I saw wearing stilleto heels. Honestly, you might as well go barefoot. I don't care if it's haute cou-ture, but high heels is foot tor-ture, to be sure.

I ended my little visit off by doing my part and vandalizing a sacred piece of Chinese history. i carved my name into one of the bricks on the Great Wall. It reads "N. Stafford - Canada - 2008" Can I get in trouble for that? Naah, as long as that brick doesn't crumble, the Emperor won't come looking for me. I think I'm in the clear.

Feb 26th - I Wish Salesmen Were Forbiddden in the City

2008-03-02T19:24:00.001-08:00

Today we walked to Tiananmen Square after getting settled at our hotel in downtown Beijing. I'd describe the view from our hotel room, but we decided to go with the cheapest little number inthe place, which doesn't come with a window. Maybe we'll change rooms tomorrow, but right now it seems like a bit of a pane. I didn't sleep at all on the train last night, so I'm inclined to crash just about anywhere tonight. My, that pile of broken beer bottles is looking like a feather bed right now. Very inviting. But no, there are places to go, people to sell us stuff.

This brings me to our little visit to Tiananmen Square. By the way, it seems to be perfectly square by all my calculations. I was worried that it would turn out to be just another rhombus or trapezoid, and my trip would be ruined. But no! Baby, it's square and I'm hip to it. Down the street, you can see the building where former Chinese leader Mao's body is resting. For five bucks you can get up close enough to see his body. All that separates you from his Commie Corpse is a 1/4 inch sheet of glass. Spooky! I don't know the number for Beijing Ghostbusters, so I better not chance it. I'll just walk on by.

Now on to the Forbidden City. The first thing I noticed was the red paint. Everywhere. I think the Chinese people believe that red is their collective colour, because it's everywhere! Red walls, red flags, red rum... We walked across a little bridge and were suddenly inside this ancient fortress surrounded by walls, roughly 30 feet tall. The buildings were incredibly detailed, with thatched roofs and gold paint everywhere. It's just so fabulous, that I have a feeling - and it's just a feeling - that the Emperor was either a bit of a Fairy, or he had some help from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy team. I will only say that once, because if that opinion went public, I would probably have my right hand cut off and I'd be forced to do the rest of my writing with my nose or big toe.

It's been established that I hate the mall. I can't drag myself into those retail stores because those smarmy clerks are always verbally assaulting me. "May I help you?" Jeez, I'm not an invalid. I can help myself thank you very much. Now, please allow me to check out back for my size. Do you honestly think they really have to "Check out back" every time? Don't you think they would have a rough idea what's in stock? And why is the store room always at the back of the store? Couldn't they check on the side? Or in the attic? I want to shop at a store where they say: "Yes, we might have that. Let me chack the Lazy Susan."

Now, back to the forbidden city. I was just looking around, minding my own business, when I found myself being attacked by salesmen everywhere I turned. They would say "Hello ____ (insert product). Hello. T-Shirt. Hello. Soft Drink. Hello. Restraining Order!" A few guys were trying to sell me guided tours of other tourist traps. "Hello. Great Wall. Hello. Terra Cotta Warriors." I'll just go with this one for now thanks. Where are we again? Oh right, the mall. Do you have this in a Go to Hell? Maybe. I'll check out back.

Feb 25th - Pains, Trains & Automobiles, Beijing Style

2008-03-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

We just completed our 10-hour journey from Harbin to Beijing via rail. No, it wasn't the actual company VIA Rail. I'm pretty sure that's only in Canada. Pity. We took the 2nd cheapest option, so I imagine it's one step up from the livestock cars. But brother, the smells don't lie. We were down on the farm.

The first little debacle we ran into was the fact that my wife and I weren't seated together. We bought our tickets at the last minute, and there wasn't much to choose from. She was in car #2 and I was in #18 aka the Foreigner Car. No, it's not a car that blasts 70's arena rock band Foreigner all night long, but believe me, I dropped a note in the suggestion box regarding said issue. I didn't have my mullet teased and zuma pants dry cleaned for nothing! After some wonderful haggling by my wife, I swapped tickets with someone, and we were together at last.

Now, to describe the passenger compartments or "sleepers" as they are called, you would have to picture a prision cell, or perhaps a jail on rails. I'm pretty sure most convicts try to squeeze in a rail whenever possible, but I was on 2 all night long, and brother, it was a bumpy ride. Each sleeper fits 4 prisioners, in bunkbeds on either side of the doorway. I felt like I was in that movie Sleep Away Camp, but I hope the ending would turn out a little differently. You know where "Sam" reveals to everyone that she is a Samuel and not a Samantha.

We had 2 other cellmates in our sleeper. A lady who was instantly asleep when we arrived, or at least pretending to be, and my new best friend, the ultimate travel companion. You, know, the kind of guy you just love to share a long journey with. Here was a guy with not one but two cellphones, one of which had a dead battery so it kept bleeping every 2 minutes, and the other had a guitar riff ring tone from Skid Row that was cranked up to eleven. But that my friends, was just the beginning...

When the lights went out, I discovered our bunkmate's true charm. I guess he is a snorer/sleep talker. Actually, he's more of a sleep crier. I swear to you, he was sobbing in his sleep. Now I really felt like I was in prision. I didn't sleep a wink for the entire trip, partly because it was stiflingly hot in our little sleeper sauna, and mostly because I was afraid that if I dozed off, "Tiny" over there would resort to prision rules and adopt me as his teddy bear to help curb the night sobbing. Who knows, maybe he had a bad experience at summer camp when he was oh, 37. But, you can't really hold a grudge against someone for things they do in their sleep. I wouldn't dream of it.

We finally arrived at Beijing Station and we ran into the nice fellow who swapped tickets with me. My wife told him about our adventures, and how I spent the night cowering in the corner of my bunk, gripping my pillow tight, not sleeping a wink. Actually, he said his night was pretty similar, and he didn't sleep a wink either. Meanwhile, our faithful bunkmate was having some trouble pulling his jumbo suitcase out from under the bottom bunk, but since he was the only one of us who got any sleep, I figured he could handle it himself.

Outside the train station, mayhem ensued. As my wife stood in line to buy tickets for our trip home, I stood by watching thousands of people pushing and shoving in a huge lineup, which I figured was for the soup kitchen, the way they hungrily shoved each other and stepped on toes. Actually, this was the line for catching a taxi, and we were about to join in the fun. Now, I've seen line weasels at work, but this must have been a cutting-in-line convention. Christ, was nothing sacred? I made up a little song for the occasion:

"When I went to China, what did I find? Nobody knows how to wait in line."

My wife told me to be aggressive, so I started blocking the weasels from cutting in front of me, using my giant backpack like a heavy bag, swinging it at the culprits, left and right. I let one family go ahead of me though. They had a toddler with them who looked like he was pretty cold. So I guess some weaselry is justified. I'm not heartless, no. But just because you are slippery, and know how to work the angles, that doesn't merit you a taxi before everybody else. We eventually got our taxi, after my wife got into a bit of a scuffle with a Chinese couple who tried to pin her against the fence to get by. Their reason: "We're older than you, so we shouldn't have to wait in line." Well, I'm pretty sure if I kept letting people pass me, I'll be a senior citizen pretty soon too. Taxi!

When we arrived at the hotel to check into the room we so wisely booked ahead of time, there was a bit of an issue. You can't get in unless you show your passport. I guess it's a new rule becuase of the olympics. Any foreigner, as well as anyone travelling with said foreigner must show a passport before they can check in. Fair enough. I guess if I go ahead and steal all their towels and miniature soaps, they can have me deported. Fair trade.

My wife, still being a Chinese citizen and all, didn't feel the need to bring her passport with her on this little trip, seeing as how we haven't left China. All she had on her were here Canadian Permanent Resident Card, and her BC Driver's License. That, and a plastic bag, can get you a big ol' bag of nothin' at this hotel. She had to phone home and have the maid fax her passport to the hotel office. While we were waiting, the desk clerk suggested that we wait in the restaurant. I think it was just a big scam to get us to buy some breakfast, which we did.

Now, I know I promised that I wouldn't describe any bodily functions in this blog, but if I were to let that rule slip just this once, I would describe a big one about 3 1/2 minutes after ingesting the "International Buffet". I wonder if the food needed to show its passport, because as soon as it checked in, there must have been a problem with the accomodations, because it immediately checked out. I suppose my edible guests didn't feel at home, and left out the back way without leaving a tip. They were loud, rude and crude, and I had to clean up a big mess after them. Some guests overstay their welcome. These ones didn't stay around long enough for that problem to arise. We experienced a sort of "falling out" that still haunts me to this day.

Now that we're in our room, I think we'll have a little nap before heading out to explore Beijing. First on the docket is Tienman Square. I've brought my tape measure, compass and protractor along on this trip, so it better be perfectly square, or I'm going home.

Feb 25th - Ain't Nuthin' But A BeiJing Thing

2008-02-24T21:03:00.001-08:00

I was just informed that we'll be taking a train to BeiJing tonight. Being the capital city of the country, I am sure it's busier and probably more polluted than Harbin, where we are currently staying. I need to pack some clothes, but I have no idea how long we'll be staying for. These details are still being worked out. I don't want to sound like a bore, but taking off to a totally foreign (literally) city with no set plans can be kind of well, exciting!! Yeah! Let's do it!

We won't be totally cut off from reality though. My wife's friend lives in BeiJing, and another cousin works a couple hours away. At least we'll be able to throw together a search party, in case I decide to go wandering around the Great Wall, or if my sleepwalking kicks in again. I've been pretty good so far. I haven't gotten up once to raid the refrigerator in the middle of the night. Back home, I've been known to chow down while snoring. Usually my wife will catch me on my way down the stairs, but if she's in a really deep sleep, I can usually eat my way through a tub of ice cream or a pack of cold cuts before I wake up and realize what I'm doing.

While in BeiJing, we are going to visit the Great Wall, Tienenman Square, hopefully The Forbidden City, and I'm excited to see what the inside of a dumpster looks like in BeiJing. I hear they use that new yellow paint for their dumpsters. It should be very memorable.

So, I won't be posting anything for a few days, but rest assured I'll keep a journal and type everything out when I return to Harbin. Happy trails, and thanks for reading.

Feb 24th - The Kids Are Alright

2008-02-24T04:05:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went out to a restaurant with my Mother-In-Law's boss and his family. And of course my wife, mother-in-law, cousin, auntie and uncle came along too. I was immediately greeted at the door by the boss' daughter, who said "Hello! What is your name?" I said Hello back, and told her my name, and then she told me her English name is Becky. I asked how old she was, and she was 10. "Alright!" I thought. Someone at my intellectual level! Finally I can talk about boogers with somebody! But boy was I in for a surprise. Not only did this little girl speak English almost fluently, but her grammer was better than mine! Boy did I feel like a dirtbag.

Becky had conveniently just come from a 1-hour English lesson and was ready to talk. She told me about her hobbies, as well as things she hates (apparently she doesn't like soccer or singing) and educated me on the capital city of China. "Beijing is known for it's natural beauty and many historical sites," she said. I said, "Cool. I like lookin' at stuff." She looked at me a little odd, and I said "Thank you. I look forward to visiting Beijing." Looks like I can only get through to her if I use the Queen's English, and not Ricky & Bubbles' of the Trailer Park Boys. Dangit, there goes all my toilet humour down the uhh... toilet. See, even my puns were thrown off tonight!

Her teacher, she tells me, is an Australian man who is very intellegent. Oh boy. They have a 1-hour conversation, and Becky's parents pay him handsomely for it. I can see her mom & dad egging her on to test her English on me. Becky proudly tells me that she wants to be a writer or a teacher, and apparently she's read quite a bit. Her favourite subjects are English and Chinese. Now, most kids pick on a bookworm, but myself once being a rather chubby, literate child, I actually liked her. I could relate. She was a little on the large side, but unlike young Nathan, it didn't seem to bother her. I said jokingly after dinner that I needed a nap. She said she was going for a walk tonight to burn off some of the fat. Jeez, this kid is makin' me look bad.

After the adults chit-chatted for a bit, Becky's father gave her the bill. She asked me to come downstairs with her. Uh oh. That time I nodded, was I agreeing to pick up the bill? What I didn't see was that the father slipped out and already pai, he just wanted Becky to go down and get the change. I followed her to the elevator and we went down to the cashier. She grabbed the change, counted it, looked the bill over and nodded to the cashier. Apparently she's her father's accountant as well. Then she asked me a funny question. "When will I see you again?" I had to think about this one. I said "What are you doing tomorrow?" She said she had another English lesson tomorrow. Maybe we can have dinner again and she can practise her English some more with me? It was kinda cute, but i said "Sorry, I'm busy tomorrow evening. Perhaps another time." She said "Okay. It was very nice meeting you. Good-bye"

So, I made a new friend today. I just hope my wife doesn't get the wrong idea... She's just my English teacher.

Feb 22nd - Let's Make A DVDeal

2008-02-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

We went back to the DVD store today. I have a pretty good feeling that most, or actually all of these DVDs are pirated. I have nothing against pirates, in fact I think parrots are pretty cool animals, and I try to use the word "swashbuckling" as often as I can. "My that's a swashbuckling sweater you have on!", "May I offer you a small swashbuckling of tea?" etc etc. Since the store clerk agreed that we could test the dvds before we buy them, we brought my wife's laptop down to the shop with us. My wife's cousin gave us a drive in his van, and he locked his swashbuckling keys in the van! I have a story about a friend smashing his own window with a rock in such a situation, but since it happened in Canada, it doesn't really fit this blog.

As Cousin Larry made a few calls to try to track down his co-worker to whom he gave his spare key, we sifted through the English titles back at the DVD shop. They actually had a fair amount of new releases, and some yet-to-be-releases. The movie "Juno", which was still in theatres last time I checked, was there, so I grabbed it, along with maybe 5 others I hadn't seen yet. My wife picked out around 6 or 7 she liked, and we were about ready to leave. Then I found another row that I hadn't seen before. We were only looking at the New Releases. And now for the piece de resistance. I couldn't believe my eyes. They had my favourite movie of all time - A Clockwork Orange. I had to buy it. I also saw a WWII movie called The Big Red One, which I've heard good things about, and also a Clint Eastwood Collection - 9 films on one DVD!

After our Supermarket Sweep was over (anyone who was a kid or shut-in in the early 90's would remember that show), I set up the laptop and got ready to test our potential purchases. My heart sank when I put in the first DVD - The Clint Eastwood Collection. The menu came up alright, but when I clicked on The Good The Bad & The Ugly, it got ugly. The computer started making this loud whirring noise, and then it said "Skipping Over Damaged Area". Ok, I've seen that before, maybe the disk is scratched, or there's a hair on it. I pressed eject and it said "Disk Error". Then I pressed Esc and it said "Device Not Available". Not only was this a bunk DVD, now it was stuck in the computer! Panicking, I restarted the computer, and then before the DVD had a chance to boot up, I ejected it. Phew! I felt like chucking the rest of the DVDs back in the bin and getting the hell out of there, but my wife urged me to press on.

It must have been a compression issue or something, because every single DVD played fine, had sound, and ejected when I told it to. I guess you can't fit 9 movies on a single DVD without something going haywire. At that point you've angered the Gods of Blockbuster and Universal Studios and there's no going back. Pretty soon Spielberg is gonna show up at your house, point a finger at you and say "Hand over that copy of E.T."

Since all of the DVDs worked, and my wife's cousin returned with his keys, it was time to check out. You wouldn't believe the deal we got - 12 DVDs plus one of those travel cases with the cutest little kitten on it - for only 90 Yuan. Let's see, that works out to $13 CDN. Wow! What a deal! Then I realized that Cousin Larry threw out his business card on the counter. It turns out he works for the Copyright Board or something here in China, and it's his job to go around and bust people for making and selling pirated CDs and DVDs. The store clerk knows how to play the game. She's not going to GIVE him the DVDs, but pretty close.

Well it seems that you get what you pay for. When we got home, we popped in one of the DVDs, and just as we were getting into it, it froze. We tried everything - fast-forwarding it, clicking on a Chapter ahead, wiping off the disk, you name it. We were hooped. We put that DVD aside, to return tomorrow, and watched another. This time, the DVD worked fine. We watched another one. Fine. I guess we'll have to watch all 12 movies now, just to see if they work, or if we have to take them back to the Pirate Ship. Looks like I better pop some corn. We've got a long night ahead of us.

Feb 21st - Wait, is Today the 15th or the 21st?

2008-02-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

I awoke today to the sound of cannons blasting just outside my window. It was actually these huge firecrackers called M-80's that can also come in handy, should a Jihad break out. I couldn't believe how loud these things were! It was around 8:00, and it sounded like the Civil War outside, all muskets a-blazin' and everything.

It turns out that today is the 15th and final day of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. That's right, New Year's lasts for 15 days over here. Most people have had all that time off work, and there's lots of good food, parties, and of course, explosive devices. I looked out the window and saw a few clouds in the sky. Hmm, that's a first. It's been clear blue skies every single day since we arrived. It won't rain now until spring, or so I'm told. But no, these weren't your average Nimbus clouds (ha! pulled that one out of Grade 7 Science class!). I think what I was seeing were clouds of smoke from all the M-80's going off around town. And ohhh baby, this was just the beginning.

We went out after lunch to buy a few things at the grocery store, and the streets were packed. On Center Street, there are no cars, only foot traffic, but I've just now discovered The Great Wall of China. There was a group of 7 or 8 people walking shoulder to shoulder, taking up most of the road, and part of the sidewalk on one side. Apparently it's "hip" for young girls to walk arm in arm, or even holding hands. I felt like I was back in the schoolyard at Ol' St Pat's. "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Nathan right over!" I was just about to charge at them, but then I saw a break in the chain, and swiftly made my way through, as a brick in the wall answered her cell phone.

After we returned home from our excursion along the Great Wall, sat around until everyone was ready to go out for dinner. I picked up a book today called 'Masters of the Beat Generation' - it's kind of a textbook, but it was one of about 7 English titles in this store I visited. Plus, I'm a fan of Kerouac and Ginsberg and those cats, so I picked it up for $4 CDN. We also went to a DVD store, where they had movies that were still in theatres. Hmmm, that's peculiar. I almost bought one, since they are about $2 each, but the store clerk said she can't guarantee that they will work in a North American DVD player. That's a little fishy. So, i asked my wife if we could come back later with her laptop and test the DVDs before we bought them. She ran this by the clerk, as I flashed her my pearly white face, and it was a deal. We never did go back, but I imagine we will some day soon.

After i read the first chapter in my textbook, we went out to eat Hot Pot. If you don't know what Hot Pot is, picture a huge bowl of boiling water in the middle of the table. You order up a bunch of food that you throw in the water and cook yourself. i was thinking, back in my homwtown, a place like this would never fly. "You mean I gotta pay for the food AND cook it myself?!?! Screw that, I'm going to the pub, where everything's been fried in the same grease since I was a wee lad. You know, food you can trust." Well, when everything's boiled, it's not half bad, and it probably kills all the bacteria and bad stuff in the food. Pesticides, maggots, rat feces and other assorted seasonings. There are a few spices thrown in, and you're good to go.

The first thing we threw in was proscutto. That's right, boiled bacon. Sounds kind of weird, I know, but it makes it easy to remove the fat once you take it out of the water, and it's cooked perfectly. After that, we threw some little lobster tails in. I think they're called langasteens or something. Actually, scrumptious is a better name for them. Then went in the sweet potatoes, tofu, spinach, and get this - Spam. Apparently they don't know what goes into Spam over here, because people just love it. Again, I think back to the hometown crowd. "What the hell? Spam in a restaurant?! You gotta be kidding me, right?" But no, they were serious. Jack, my 8 year-old nephew was lovin it. He'll have the Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Bacon & Spam, please (That's a Monty Python reference in case you're thinking I've gone bananas. Or spamanas).

By the end of the dinner, you are left with a big pot of soup in the middle of the table, then noodles are thrown in, and it's quite tasty. Spam, lobster, bacon, spinach, tofu & potato soup. Let's see Campbell's fit all that on one of those little red & white cans.

After dinner, it was time for us to make some noise. We had a hidden stash of firecrackers & roman candles ready to fire at will. I lugged the 3 huge boxes downstairs and we proceeded to light them up and plug our ears. The firecrackers were the most fun; 20 or 30 foot ropes of them, with a big bundle at the end that exploded like a molotov cocktail. I set off 3 of those, and then got to play with some Roman Candles. Sweeeet! My wife was telling me about these little "Flying saucers" she played with as a kid. It's like a firecracker that spins around & around a million miles a second and actually lifts itself up off the ground before exploding. Well, with a description like that, I just had to have some.

We set off wandering through the cold night, in search of these little bangers. Picture a newspaper stand on the corner in some old movie you saw when you were a kid. Now replace the newspapers, TV Guides and Hustlers with roman candles, M-80's and roman candles. Now we're in business. We bought 2 packs of 'butterflies' after watching a pretty cool demonstration, and then we walked on to another stand, where we bought 24 "whirly birds" - a version of my wife's childhood explosives. With our weapons ready, we prepared to light up the night sky. It took a couple of tries to get the butterflies going - you have to lay them a certain way to make them fly up in the air. Those babies were fun, but the whirlybirds... Man they were just dangerous.

To start off, the fuse would ignite before you even touched it with your match - I guess they use spontaneous cumbustion technology. The, you had about 13 milliseconds to get out of the way, before this little flaming ball came whizzing by your head. Whirlybirds tend not to fly straight up like their winged cousins, but instead choose a path all their own. Out into traffic, bouncing off buildings, or right at my face. I didn't want to light them any more, but my wife egged me on. Of course, from a safe distance. Since we were on the sidewalk, pedestrians were passing by, always in danger of getting torched. One couple nearly got buzzed, but I didn't see it happen. Apparently they guy was getting ready to come over & fight me, but the wife was pulling him back. He started yelling, and then once he got a little closer and I looked him in the eyes, he suddenly stopped. He probably thought the white devil can shoot fire out of his mouth, so I better get away. I lit the last of the whirlybirds in an alley so as to avoid any future confrontations, cause let's face it. I'd be rather angry if some dude almost burned my face with a firecracker, wouldn't you?

We walked around a bit more, looking at all the fireworks going off in every direction. By this time, the smoke was getting really bad, and I could see little bits of crap floating in the air. I'd rather not breathe any of that crap in, so we went home. When we got in the elevator, I took one whiff, and I realized we were stinking it up. You know how fireworks smell, right? Now multiply that by 3 and place said bodies in a crammed elevator. I remember being a kid and coming home smelling like grassfires. You were busted immediately. This was kind of the same, but hey, we had an excuse. It's the 15th today!

When I got in and hung my jacket up to air off, I was asked if I wanted to eat. I wasn't really hungry, but not wanting to break tradition, I sat down at the table. It's a Chinese custom that you have to eat these little round dumplings on the 15th day, so I chowed down. They were filled with sesame seeds and nuts of some sort, and damn if they weren't the tastiest things I've eaten all day. A perfect way to end the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration. I'm stinky, my belly's full, and if I look out the window, I can just make out the noxious smoke clouds dancing in the midnight air. Yikes, there goes some more M-80's looks like I won't be getting to sleep any time soon. That's okay though. I can sleep in tomorrow. It's New Year's Day again!

Feb 20th - Mr Lonely, English Only

2008-02-20T05:28:00.001-08:00

I've felt a little bit isolated on a few occasions on my trip to China, but it's mostly been when I'm sitting with a large group of people around the dinner table. There'll be multiple conversations flying around the room, and being limited to the English language, a little bit of bastardized Acadian French and a hazy B+ in Grade 12 Spanish, I'm usually left to my imagination to pass the time, or I resort to my 2 old friends, food & drink. My wife, bless her heart, can only translate so much for me, and when she's taking part in all 15 conversations simultaneously, it's hard for her to stop everything and translate word for word to me. No fault of hers, or anyone's other than my own, really. If I wanted to avoid this situation, I would have taken the time to learn Mandarin like a good little globetrotter, but I didn't, so there.

Today is a little different. I've been left alone before, that's been established, but never physically on my own, like now. My wife and Mother-In-Law decided to have a little mother-daughter time, like I'm sure all mothers and daughters do. My wife was all set to visit her mother's office at city hall, abserve her working, and then they planned on going out for dinner, just the two of them. I'm not sour about being left alone at home. On the contrary. I'm glad for them. Since my wife has lived on her own in Canada for nearly a decade now, I'm sure they have some catching up to do. Understandable, perfectly understandable. They don't need me to much it up and ring up their dinner tab. Besides, I wouldn't be completely alone. The maid was home, and she was going to make me dinner later.

Now, what the hell am I going to do to amuse myself all day? I thought about going outfor a walk, but then I pictured myself getting lost, so that notion passed. I learned how to say the name of the park across the street from where we lived so in case of an emergency, i can just hop in a cab, say the name of the park, and hope the driver a) understands me; and b) takes the direct route, and not the "let's rip off the foreigner" extended tour. Maybe I'd better stay inside, just to be safe.

I started reading a book I brought along with me, but I got a little bored of it eventually. I've been reading quite a bit on this trip, actually. I started out with The Catcher In The Rye, but I cheated, because it was a book on tape; then I read July's People by Nadine Gordimer, a book about the turmoil in South Africa; then I read In Our Time by Ernest Hemmingway, which I really liked. It was a fairly easy read. All short stories which were kind of connected but not really; then yesterday I read The Moon Is Down by Steinbeck, and just today I started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I've read it before, but it's the only book I have left, so I started it. That's probably why I got bored with it, the fact that I've read it before, I mean.

I hung around the house and did some more reading, then flicked around the tv. As you can probably tell, I was vegging out today. I smelled the early signs of dinner, so i was in no hurry to go anywhere. You know when the cook starts preparing dinner at 3:00, it's gonna be a good one. It's really odd, having someone cook & clean for you. My wife calls her 'sister', but they aren't related or anything. She's a live-in maid, and that's really all I know about her. She's under 5 feet tall, and smiles a lot. She speaks no English, and can just barely pronounce my name. Like most Chinese people I have encountered, the 'th' in Nathan gives her trouble. I don't mind though, because I have trouble saying her name too. There's a part that sounds like 'dz' but not quite. So our relationship is pretty simple. i eat her food, thank her, and we go our separate ways. She's a dynamite cook though, and I think she really likes to see people enjoying her food. She must like me then, because I always pile it in.

After dinner, I flicked on the tv again, and started to watch soccer. Sports are my one sanctuary on tv over here. I don't really care what the commentator is saying either, I just make up my own. "And Big head passes over to Sprinty, whose father is a butcher and married a girl with a peg leg, who then passes over to Red Face, who is stopped by the goalie, Blackshirt." The game is part of the East Asia Football Championships, which I gather is some sort of tournament played between the various countries that make up East Asia, with the winner being declared champion. The particular matchup is China vs Japan; a big-time rivalry in these parts that is played out on many a ping pong table and fencing uhhh fence regularly. Japan is wearing blue, and China is in Red. Of course China is in red. They probably wouldn't agree to play if they were asked to wear any other colour. I think it has something to do with those little red envelopes you see them handing out at new years. They must collect them their whole lives, and make a soccer jersey out of them when they turn 21.

The score was 1-0 Japan, and it was almost half-time. The Chinese team wasn't getting many chances at the net, but then again, neither were the Japanese. It was pretty even, mostly back & forth in the midfield. I had already missed the only goal. Half time came, and there were a lot of commercials for Nike. One had David Bowie singing in it. I thought that was nice. Good for his bank account anyway. After commercial-fest, the game was back on. This time, the Japanese were charging the net, going after the insurance goal. They looked like they were going to score, but then a single play changed everything.

On an odd man rush, the Chinese goalie kicked the Japanese striker right in the heart. You could tell he was trying to plead his case, while the Japanese player lay there in a heap. Eventually he was carried off by stretcher-bearers. A yellow card came out, and then the game started getting chippy. I counted 6 yellow cards after that. 4 for China and 2 for Japan, and there was almost a scrap in the final minutes. The Chinese team was clearly frustrated. The Japanese team continued to pour it on though, nearly scoring twice.

The final whistle blew after about 4 minutes of extra time allotted for injuries, both real & fabricated, and it was a win in the books for Japan. They cut to an interview with one of the Chinese players, who got all mad and stormed out. They never did talk to anyone from Team japan, or at least they didn't show it. I guess since it's a Chinese tv station, CCTV I think. I imagine they accused the Japanese team of cheating, or summed it up as a near-victory. The Chinese seem to have a lot of national pride, but I don't think they enjoy being defeated by Japan.

I pictured the tv show Iron Chef, where they usually have a Chinese chef vs a Japanese Chef, and how the food always looks way too complicated to eat. They should try combining soccer and Iron Chef sometime, just to see what it does in the ratings. Instead of a yellow card, the refereat would hold up a knife, fork, or (gasp!) the dreaded chopsticks, which signals that he has indigestion, and one of the dishes he ate is about to be ejected.

My wife just came home, and not a moment too son, I think. I was just about to charge at the maid and kick a watermelon at her, which is the secret ingredient of the first half. We definitely need a refereat to explain all the rules for this pseudo-sport I just invented. You see what happens when you leave me alone for too long? Progress, that's what. I'm not lonely, I'm just temporarily insane! Now pass the bowl, I'm going in for the scone.

feb 19th - Ma & Pa Jong

2008-02-19T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today I was schooled in the ancient art of Majong. In case you're not Chinese, it's a game like dominoes, and in case you're not from the south either, it's complicated. It's a game where fast-thinking is needed, and fast hands are a plus. There's no cards or gameboard or sharades or anything liek that. Just you, your 3 opponents, and about 100 little tiles. On the back of each tile is either a Chinese character that stands for a number, or between 1 and 9 symbols, which are called pancakes or beans. At least that's what I call them. I can't remember what they are actually called.

Being white, and illiterate when it comes to Chinese numerical characters (is it still considered illiterate if you can't read numbers, or would that be il-numerate?) I was at a disadvantage. My wife and cousin were trying to teach me to play, and were kind enough to let me win one game early on, so I wouldn't get discouraged. They've obviously tought this game to small children before, and I'm happy they consider my intelect matching that of a 7 or 8 year old. "Here, have a cookie. Give me your apple, let me peel it for you and cut it into nice slices" Uhh okay.

Basically the game goes like this - you always have 13 pieces in your "hand". Or is it 14? That's not important. It's more like crucial. When it's your tuen, you are allowed to pick a new piece from the "deck" but then you must throw out one of your old pieces, if you want to keep the one you just drew. Other players can pick up the ones you dispose of, which otherwise end up in a big mish-mash inthe middle of the table. Within the 14 pieces in your hand, you have to get as many pairs, 3 of a kinds or runs of 3 in order to make up a full house. I'm lousy at poker too. I always throw in the big bet with a chincy pair, just to look like I have something of value. Once you get a full house, you flip your cards over, and then you have to draw one more card ( I'll call them cards just for simplicity's sake) and make it fit into your hand (either as a 3rd to go along with one of your pairs, or to complete a run, etc).

There was some wierd stuff going on from the other players that I can't really explain. The first person to flip their cards over gets to draw a "treasure" card, and if they get that one in their hand, it now becomes a wild card, but only he or she can see it at first. Then there is something about eating your opponent's card. I'd rather just have some more apple, thank you very much. In the end, I could tell they were trying to let me win because I was getting the wild cards handed to me, and I kind of lost interest. Maybe there's a Coles Notes for Majong out there somewhere that I can pick up for pointers.

Before the game started, my nephew and I were having a contest to see who could stack the dominoes the highest, and then we made a big robot and a dinosaur outof the pieces. This was actually more fun than playing the game with the grown-ups. Maybe I do have the intellect of a 7 or 8 year old afterall. But hey, when Ma & Pa Jong come to town, I'm all business. Just don't blame me when my Straight reads 1,2,4,7. Read 'em & weep boys, cause I can't.

Feb 18th - Koreally?

2008-02-19T05:27:00.000-08:00

New Restaurant idea: IHOG - International House of Gluttony

Today I was informed that we'd be going to a Korean restaurant for dinner, as guests of a family friend, who happens to be a dentist. It turns out the place wasn't just a Korean joint like we have back home, but an international buffet, with treats from all around the world. There were sushi rolls (including banana sushi, which was new to me), Korean BBQ and bibimbap, King Crab, rice & noodle dishes, veggie kabobs, and to top it all off: BEER WAS INCLUDED! Yes that's right - for the price of a buffet ticket, you could have endless mugs of draft beer. It was like a chef school put on a kegger, and you could eat & drink all night long. Nobody even cared how messy you ate, or how high your plate was stacked. I was in paradise.

A place like this wouldn't last long where I come from. I guess this restaurant hasn't been discovered by the bane of many an all-you-can-eat restaurant: college students. This place would be bone dry in about a week if the boys of I Delta Krappa or some other fraternity caught wind of it. As I navigated my way through my second frosty mug, I figured it was probably time to do some serious eating. Besides, I'm being watched by a dentist. All the sugar in that beer will definitely do a number on my teeth. Better switch to Pepsi.

At the International House of Gluttony, you can take a magical journey through the cuisines of every culture in the world. First, I donned my Komono and went to Japan, catching as much suchi as I could, making sure I tried at least one of each kind. Next, I moved on to Korea, with her delicious grilled meat and veggie kabobs. Then it was on to China, and that meant one thing. Crabs. Big ones. Tasty ones. China gave me crabs, and I itched for more.

Now that my tasty travels through international waters were complete, I decided, being from Canada and all, it was time to throw caution to the wind and create the United Nations of dinnertime.. I grabbed a few sushi rolls from Japan, Korean Kimchi, Chinese shrimp, a pastry that I'm pretty sure came from the Phillipines, a Greek Salad, and a cup of Columbian COffee. I felt like Marco Polo or Cap N Crunch, or some other worldly character.

After we finished eating, I was looking around for where I get my passport stamped. I felt like my stomach had just been around the world in 30 plates. My wife looked a little seasick, maybe just weary from all the travel. It really takes it outta ya, or puts it into ya in this case. She'll be alright once she launches a dingy tough. On my way out the door, one of the chefs flashed me a big smile. I waved bye-bye to her, grabbed my suitcase (which is now over the weight cpacity) and shoved off. Aye Aye mate! I'm now overweight.

Feb 18th - Bicycle Man

2008-02-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

You know him well. He's the little old man who zips through traffic on a rusted-out pedal bike; the kind chumps like us throw away when we get a new one. He looks a bit deshevelled and probably under-fed, but that's his business. He likes to travel light. As he darts out into traffic you see that his bike doesn't have any breaks. How the hell does he stop? Well, I don't think he really wants to. He has work to do.

We all dream of retirement at 65, a nice summer home and a hammock, stretched out with a glass of lemonade, and a boat in the garage we're in no hurry to fix up. The Bicycle Man doesn't think about these things, he will probably never stop working. If he does, he'll shrink away and starve to death, then he'll become food for the rats. It's the year of the rat now, so it's only fitting I guess.

As he rides, he bangs on an overturned plastic bucket resting on the handlebars of his 10-speed. His splintered drumstick would probably trash my soft hands, but calluses have taken over his paws. He doesn't even wear gloves in this -20 degree weather. He's drumming away like Ginger Baker, but there's a method to his madness. As he passes the apartment buildings, the beat of his rubbermaid drum brings out housewives who have been waiting for him. Boy, if this method worked back home, there wouldn't be a single man in Canada. But no, they aren't coming out to throw themselves at him. Instead, they throw bottles at him.

Recycling is big business, and he knows it. Bicycle Man is pitching in to make the world a little cleaner, and his pockets jingle. He piles the empties on the bicycle rack first, then fills a garbage bag that's probably older than I am. Pretty soon he's balancing a bag the size of a hot-air balloon on top of his head, still somehow managing to beat his drum and ride along. I worry about him. Does he have a home? Will he eat anything tonight? What about water? I bet his water is polluted. If he's worried about all that, he doesn't seem to show it. He just keeps pedalling on to the beat of his bucket, never stopping, never complaining. Retirement? Ha!
Bicycle Man doesn't have time for retirement. He's just one bottle away from a hot meal tonight. Just let him work in peace.

Feb 17th - More Uncles? What the??

2008-02-17T01:11:00.000-08:00

Today I went out for lunch with my wife and Father-In-Law to meet the other half of my Chinese family. To date, I have met my Mother-In-Laws brothers and sisters, but nobody on my wife's father's side. Some people might be nervous at a time like this, but not me, I just get boozed up.

We were supposed to be there by noon. I think we might have been a couple minutes late, but I always use the excuse that we're 16 hours ahead of Vancouver, so you can't really blame me. It's still 8PM in my mind. Who the hell wants to eat lunch at 8PM? The introductions went ok. I met my Father-In-Law's younger brother, his wife, and then his older brother, wife and daughter, who is around my age, maybe a year or so younger. She speaks English though, which is nice for me. Now I don't have to inspect the wallpaper for an hour, while the crowd reagails in stories of the good ol' days, or talk about the weather or stock tips. Actually I don't know what the hell they're talking about to tell you the truth. I usually only look up when I hear someone say "Canada", which actually sounds like Chanada in Chinese.

So we talked about this and that. My "cousin" studies in another city, but I can't remember the name. It sounded like Shaolin, you know from Kung Fu, the Legend Continues, but that can't be it. She says it is known as "The Most Romantic City in China", shich means couples are probably allowed to hold hands while walking down the street, or at least talk about holding hands. In Harbin, your wife is more your associate, and you invite her into your "office" to discuss the "business" of making a child. If she accepts your offer, a contract is drawn up, and you are now "colleagues". Ant offspring become your employees, and offer various incentives, such as increased foot traffic and brand extension. This is pretty much what I observed here, I don't know if it's fact. I try to stay away from writing about the facts, anyway. It seems all boring and factual to me.

Now to my uncles. These are real uncles, by the way. None of this calling every man who's at least a year older than you uncle. My father in law's brothers are gathered around this table. The man to my right is a doctor, and the man to my left is an insurance broker. It's strange though, the doctor seems to smoke more than anyone I've ever seen. I suppose it was once commonplace for a doctor to smoke back in Canada, but that trend, along with most of those doctors, died in the 70's. You'd swear this guy prescribes ciggy's to his patients. Hell, he's still alive, right? You have to be good and healthy to smoke this much. He offers me a smoke, but for the sake of my health, I'll stick to my nice, delicious 2nd hand smoke thank you very much.

Uncle #2 smokes a fair bit too. It seems like between every course at dinner, he lights up a smoke just to cleanse his palate. "Mmmmmm that seafood would go well with a sprinkle of Malboro". I've heard of an after-dinner smoke, but during dinner? C'mon. His teeth paint the picture for me, but it's a disturbing portrait in a shade of brown I don't care to indulge in. A mouthful of modern art, to say the least. He seems like a happy-go-lucky type though, so he's always flashing me his pearly browns. He asks my wife if I'm into music. She says yes, that I'm into punk, and I play the bass. He said he wants to hear me play sometime. I think he's just being nice though. Still, he orders some beer for me. What a nice fellow.

The local beer comes in these 600ml bottles, and it's 4% alcohol. All boasting aside, I can drink this stuff like water. He brags that he can drink 6 bottles all by himself. He asks how many I can drink. Looking at the 4 epties on my side of the table, I hold up both hands "10" I guessed. Well, this impressed the hell out of uncle. He stood up and patted my back, and went to order more beer. It's only about 1PM now, so I don't necessarily want to get shitfaced here in this restaurant, and have my wife peel me off the floor later. I said "Boo La Shie Shie" with means politely, "No Thanks". Next time. Older uncle invited us over to his house to have dinner sometime, where I think he wants to stage some sort of drinking contest. Hey, I'm game. Just don't expect me to enter a smoking contest with these guys. I like my teeth just the way they are - solid.

The meeting went down fairly well. I think they all approve of me. Hell, I could give a damn if anyone likes me or not, but they seemed to be impressed. If you can hold your liquor, people here in China consider youa masculine dude. I know some wino's back home who could run for president over here! As much as I make fun of my uncles, I still enjoyed their company. Hopefully I'll be able to continue this little story with a drinking contest later. Until then, I bid you achoo.

Feb 16th - Arcade Celebrity/Chinese Walmart

2008-02-16T06:35:00.000-08:00

Today we hung out with my wife's cousin. He speaks a bit of English (actually the best out of anyone I've met over here so far) and he asked if he could take us to the arcade. I've been to CHQ or whatever the hell it's called in Metrotown back home, and I had to leave because the noise and heat were cranked beyond the level of disco inferno. This place was no different. Noiseland Vidiot Arcade as I call it, was packed to the tits with kids. Smoking is allowed inside, almost encouraged, so I was feeling a little green when I first went in, but after the head rush was gone, I settled in.

We were playing basketball at first, you know the kind where the rim moved back & forth in order to make it more of a challenge. I was doing alright, considering the fact that it's been a while since I played. All of a sudden, a guy in a suit with a microphone came up and yelled "HELLO!" at me. He stuck the microphone in my face and I yelled "HELLO!" back just as ridiculously. He said "ARE YOU RUSSIAN?" What an odd question. Is that the type of thing that passes for conversation in these parts? I felt like saying, "No I'm from the USSR!" But instead I just said "No". By now a crowd was forming around us, mostly of giggling girls, and I realized that I was on the PA through the whole arcade. I felt like grabbing the mic away from him, but what could I say?

I felt a bit awkward with all these people looking at me, so I finally said "I am Canadian." He smiled, said "Welcome to Harbin", and gave me 30 free game tokens. I looked up at my score in basketball, and it was 150. I asked my wife if everyone who scores 150 baskets wins a free game or something, but she said "No, he gave you those because you're white." Talk about preferrential treatment! I was thinking I should just walk around the city and try to take advantage of my whiteness in every way I can. You know, the free "vanilla ice cream cone" at McDonald's, maybe some free "White Meat" at KFC. I'm sure businesses are just dying to help out a poor white man who's down on his luck. The crowd went away after some gigglers got their fill of staring at me, and we went back to playing our game. That was an interesting start to my day, to say the least.

My wife said she and her friend were talking about things that I could do for work here in China, and apparently, it would be very very easy for me to get on tv here. There is a shortage of Mandarin speaking whiteys for hosting game shows and talking about music videos and things. Or, if that didn't work out, maybe I could be a greeter at WALMART! Yes, they have Walmart here in China, and I went there today. The entrance is pretty much the same. Guys stand there handing out what I think are coupons, ladies fight over the best shopping cart, and kids are crying, probably because they just failed their S.A.T's I assume.

We weren't in Walmart for long. My wife just needed some contact lens solution, and she knows I get antsy in shopping malls. We just wanted to get in, get the goods & get out. But as I walked through the store, I got offered a free sample. This has international incident written all over it, I thought. There was a girl with a cup of tea, and she pushed it forward at me. I jumped back, because I thought "What if she slipped, or if I slipped, I might get my face scalded by hot tea!" I shook my head, and then another girl appeared, with a bag of loose tea leaves. She held the back open to me and jestured that I stick my hand in. What the hell am I going to do with a handful of loose tea? "Oh yes thank you, these will fit right in my pocket. My, this tea will come in handy later when I pour boiling water down my pants. Oh, could I have another handful? It looks so crunchy and gritty!"

The rest of the store looked pretty much the same as our Walmart's. That yellow smiley face is everywhere, and the big "Rollback Prices" deal is going on. I have yet to go to a "Sam's Club" yet, the Walmarts where they sell groceries, but I doubt they sell Chicken feet, fish heads and duck eggs. This one did, and I imagine you could buy them by the caselot. Just in case you're expecting company, you want to have extra pig entrails and goat spleens on hand. I'm not saying Chinese cuisine is strange, actually yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. Take it like this. If I'm buying yak's milk, just the 1 litre carton will do. I don't need to buy in bulk.

Feb 15th - Happy ValenChine's Day

2008-02-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Valentine's Day here in China - that's right, a day ahead of the rest of the world. I think that's so we can get a good crack at all the good chocolates over here, then whatever crap doesn't get bought, we ship over to Canada. That's right, the Chinese actually do celebrate this, the pinnacle of the Hallmark Holidays - only it's celebrated a little differently over here. I've learned that it's not really acceptable for a couple to kiss in public. For some reason, public displays of affection get the same reaction as say, the bubonic plague in the rest of the world. Still, some Chinese couples can be seen walking hand in hand, with a big bouquet of roses in the girl's hand.

Since I am pretty much incapable of making purchases on my own, I couldn't buy my wife anything for Valentine's Day. She understood. We decided instead, to celebrate by having some "alone time" away from her parents, relatives, etc. Dinner and a movie sounded like a reasonable solution, since it's 20 below outside so skinny dipping was out of the question. We went up to the Mega-Plex theatre or whatever it's called, and asked the cashier if they had any movies with English subtitles, so I could watch.

I was standing back a bit, but I heard the cashier shouting "Mayo, mayo" - so I thought she was desperately needing some mayonaise for her ham sandwich. We must have caught her on her lunch break, which would make me angry too. When my blood sugar gets low, I can get a bit testy. But no, mayo roughly translates, means "It doesn't exist." - I'm sure she doesn't literally mean that Chinese movies with English subtitles don't exist, but that they don't have any. You never know, they might not have that technology here yet.

Afterall, they still use paper for everything. Cash only, no debit. You know how back in Canada you can sometimes avoid the big lineup at the theatre by using their self-serve debit machines? Well, not here in China. Every store, every service, is cash only. Even on Valentine's Day, you couldn't buy overpriced flowers for your loved ones, unless you had cash on you.

After the movie debacle, we went for lunch at Mr Lee's California Beef Noodle King. That's really the name. It kind of reminded me of KFC, only without the chicken, and bowls of noodles in beef broth instead. They actually have KFC here, but the Colonel looks slightly more Asian, I guess so the locals can identify more with the brand. Our lunch was pretty good, and the whole thing cost less than $4 CDN for both of us to eat.

We went out to the mall after that - my wife wanted to buy a few things. I tried on a couple of shirts, because I was politely told that my sweater had seen better days, and it seems that I am not a "Medium" over here. Like Russel Peters says, I am Shaq in China. I actually tried on a XL shirt that just barely fit! To all you low self-esteem dieting types back in North America: You definitely want to stay away from China if your self esteem depends on what size clothes you can squeeze yourself into.

After I bought some new duds, we walked around in the "Ice City" for a while - there is one street that is completely shut down to cars & busses. Down the middle of the street there are these big ice sculptures shaped like various things: rats (it's the year of the rat), olympic athletes, and I'm pretty sure one was a potato. Either that or the sculptor messed up.

Our Valentine's Day was pretty low key, but that's just the way I like it. We ended off by signing our names on a giant paper heart at one end of Center Street (that's the one with the sculptures). Ours were the only names written in English. The girl taking our picture wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day to me, but she wasn't sure how to say it in English. I wonder if they even know the story of St Valentine, or if it's just a national day to appreciate that special someone. Not in public though.. that's strictly forbidden.

Feb 13th - I'm Writing You From China... In The Future!!

2008-02-13T20:20:00.002-08:00

Since I came to China about 2 weeks ago, I’ve been making an effort to keep up with my duties back in Canada. I made sure the rent got paid, my bills are all up-to-date, and I’ve been trying to keep in touch with my family and all that. One thing I forgot about was my other writing obligation, a monthly magazine I contribute to called BC Musician (www.bcmusicianmag.com).

Today was the first time I checked my email in more than a week. I didn’t have a chance while I was driving around Hainan, and none of our hotels had internet access. Hainan is a pretty small place, so it’s understandable that they don’t have high speed internet everywhere you go. When I checked my email today, I had a message from the magazine:

“Nathan, can you attend so-and-so conference, take some pictures and write a story? Here’s the date and time, etc etc.

I replied with “I am in China right now. Unfortunately I can’t make it. However, I have my story ready for the March issue, if you want it ahead of schedule.”

Being a keener, I took care of doing the article before I left Canada. Well, most of it anyway. I interviewed someone, and had the general idea for the story, it just hadn’t been put on paper yet. It was written in my head. I also asked my Editor if the cover was still available, as I had kinda sorta promised it to this band, in exchange for a nice, long interview.

Apparently the cover story is due a week before the rest of the articles, so if I wanted the cover, I had better get off my ass and write this story. So I basically forgot that I was in China for a day, got on the computer and started putting together this article. When I emailed the Editor, I said that I am a day ahead of her, so please take that into account. I got a good laugh from her reply.

“You’re in China? That’s so cool! If you’re a day ahead of us, can you tell me what happens tomorrow? Maybe I’ll just stay in bed if I already know what’s gonna happen.”

I relied with “You will win the lottery tomorrow, and will be sleeping in a large pile of money. You should definitely stay in it for as long as possible. Oh and you gave Nathan the cover story.”

I hope she has a good sense of humour, otherwise my story will probably be stuck in the back somewhere.

By the way, I usually post all of my music articles on my other blog site, www.nathanstafford.blogspot.com so I hope it’s not a cardinal sin to promote one blog through another or something. Still, I’m sure some people would be interested to know that I wrote an article about a Canadian band while in China. Maybe for my next article I’ll go to Africa and write about a Chinese band, just for fun.

Back With The Sickness

2008-02-13T20:20:00.001-08:00

I arrived back in Harbin last night, and yes, it’s bitter cold. I was only back at our apartment for about 10 minutes. Long enough to change clothes and put on a swipe of deodorant. My wife informs me that we are going out for dinner, to see one of her close friends off , as she is leaving for Beijing tonight and she might not get to see her for a while. So, I down a handful of Vitamin C tablets, try to blow my nose as many times as I can, then I bundle up and hit the streets.

It’s bitterly cold outside, but inside the restaurant is nice and warm. Here I am introduced to everyone, and aske to sit over on one side of the room with all the men. There are 4 of us. The women all sit together on the other side of the room, chit-chatting and gossiping away. My father in law is there, and he’s a good guy, so I sit with him. He doesn’t speak any English, but we have sort of an unspoken bond. We sit together, smile, and drink beer together on occasions such as this. What more could you want from a drinking buddy? We doesn’t talk my ear off, and he always fills my glass for me! Plus he has excellent taste in beer.

I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t drink afterall, but what the heck. You only live once! I think that saying is sort of strange. You only live once. You only die once too, but you don’t hear people going around saying that. Maybe that could be a new sales pitch for coffin salesmen, you know for upselling people and convincing them to buy the solid gold underwear to be buried in. Hey now, let’s not get Carat-away. Oh, I love a good pun.

Anyway, back to the dinner, and back to the Chinese moonshine. Since they have the “every male older than you is your uncle” rule here in China, it was my duty to toast these guys, who I of course have never met. Mother In Law insisted that I toast everyone in the room, including herself. I was kind of put off by that, you know being forced to toast someone, but I did it anyway, and I think I did a pretty good job at it. My wife of course translated it, so if I screwed up, she probably covered up for me. I’m afraid if I tried to use any of my so-called Mandarin, I would end up telling the lady sitting across from me that I enjoyed her scent of rat feces, and I think the food tastes like a weather balloon. You might say I have the gift of gab.

I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with Father In Law, so it wasn’t half bad. My wife and her friend were having their “girl talk” and went to the bathroom together & stuff. It’s amazing how girls can coordinate their bladders like that. It seems pretty efficient to me though. That way they can keep the conversation going, while they’re going.

Once dinner was over, we went home and I pretty much went straight to bed. I wasn’t feeling too hot, and neither was my wife. I think she was starting to get my cold. We both dozed off and I actually had a pretty good sleep. That was until the sun rose.

I guess it’s tradition in China to keep the fireworks going for 15 days after New Year’s. Pretty much everyone takes a week off work and they have nothing to do other than set off fireworks and blow stuff up. Sounds like a good holiday to me, just not at 7:30 in the morning. I actually jumped out of bed at one time, because the string of firecrackers must have been right outside our window. Jesus, I thought we were under attack! I must have been having dreams about WW2 again. I do that sometimes. I actually had a dream the other night that one of my best friends from High School was killed, but there was a rumour that one of our own soldiers killed him. Being a sleuth, it was my job to find out who done it, and send him off to jail.

After I got out of bed, I had some delicious food, which was cooked by my wife’s sister. She’s not actually related to my wife, she just calls her sister. Another one of those Uncle situations I think. She’s more of a live-in maid, but she’s a fantastic cook. She made me soup and peeled about 15 mangoes for me, which have made me feel 100 times better. We mostly ate at roadside cafes and seafood joints wile we were traveling, so it was good to taste a home-cooked meal once again.

Goodbye-nan/ Pollution Watch

2008-02-13T20:19:00.001-08:00

It’s our last night in the little province of Hainan. Tomorrow morning we’ll fly back up to the Northern Chill of Harbin. I have enjoyed my stay here for the most part. I ate lots of fresh fruit, most of it star-shaped, which we bought locally so it tasted fantastic. Unfortunately, my parting gift from Hainan is a lovely little fluveneir. That’s right, I got sick. Everyone has a few theories as to why I’m under the weather. For one, I didn’t dress for the cold evenings. I imagines 30 degree heat day and night, but that’s not necessarily the case. It get’s a bit nippy once in a while, especially out on the water in the Love Boat. Also, for some reason, none of the hotels we stayed at offered heated rooms – I guess that’s just an extravagance in Hainan.

I have another theory. As you may or may not know, I’ve been monitoring the pollution levels somewhat during my stay in China. It involves taking photos of the city skylines, comparing smog levels, plus testing the quality of the air, using my own lungs as the litmus paper. I’ve taken into account the different climates too. For example, in Harbin it’s 20 below, so you don’t necessarily taste the air pollution as much. You can see the smog up there in the sky, but the cold air probably crystallizes the smog molecules to the point that it goes mainly unnoticed by us. I’m not sure he exact technical jargon here, but I think the cold makes you notice it less. Here in Hainan, with the much warmer climate, the muggy, sticky air probably makes the pollution feel twice as bad as it really is.

So here I lay in a cold hotel bed with my glass of hot water and my jar of vitamin C tablets, which I bought at the “Drug Supermarket” in Sanya. The pills were imported from he States – I’m still hesitant to cross into the netherworld that is Chinese medicine unless I absolutely have to. I’m sure my whiteness would reject the drugs like a kidney transplant gone wrong. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I cant wait to get back to the -20 degree temperature. I know it sounds strange, but I gots to chill, so the air won’t make me feel so ill.

Pains, Trains & Automobiles Continued... Sanya Edition

2008-02-13T20:18:00.002-08:00

In the Southern Chinese city of Sanya, motorcycles are everywhere. I’d say it’s a 50/50 car to motorcycle ratio. I’m not talking about our usual biker gangs, either. These are cabbies – an army of cabbies on Honda’s with little side cars, zipping all over town, taking people to the market or making deliveries. Lucky for us, one came to our rescue.

In my last entry, I talked about our adventures in house-hunting. Today we went back to the first place we visited, Crabapple Bay. All was swell – we looked at the huge diorama in the sales office, walked around the beach, looked at some palm trees, and even filled pa bottle with sand from the beach. It’s not like the stuff we get back home. This stuff was so white and fine, you could sweeten your coffee with it.

After we looked around, Mother In Law haggled with the real estate agent (who looked like she was about 17 by the way) and we left. But when we returned to our sweet Toyota Minivan, the damn thing wouldn’t start! Somebody had the bright idea to try & bump-start it, so here I was behind the van, pushing it with our tour guide and the driver’s wife. We got it up to a good jogging pace, but no luck. We were indeed fucked.

Everybody had theories as to why it wouldn’t start. Because the engine wouldn’t fire remote keychain lock wouldn’t work, we concluded that it was the battery. Guess I shouldn’t have hooked p my Nintendo to the cigarette lighter outlet. But I was playing Zelda and I was just about to fight the giant Boar’s Head in Balrog’s castle! If I quit I’ll have to start over and go all the way through the dark woods. Screw that!

The groundskeeper came over to offer us a boost, but they only had golf carts in this part of town, and of course no jumper cables. So that idea fell faster than my experience points in Zelda. Then along came our savior on a motorcycle. I cal him Yeevol Kinevol on account of how fast he drives. This guy said he knows a mechanic, and for a price, he’ll go and get him. We told him what the general problem was, and he sped off. He returned about 30 minutes later with a guy he said was his landlord. The guy, who also looked like he was about 17, took one look at the engine, busted out his jumper cables and spare battery, and lo and behold, she started up. The funny thing is, once the van started up, the headlights came on.

“Ooops!” said the driver. He left them on the whole time we were walking around. He didn’t get frustrated or anything though. He paid the mechanic 50 Yuan and the driver 30. That’s 7 dollars and 4 dollars Canadian, respectively. What a deal! Yeevol actually tried to give us 10 Yuan back because he only wanted to charge the actual meter rate (what an honest guy) but our driver refused. So, we’re off and running, or actually driving again. Since we’re now headed back to Haikou, I’ll leave you with this:

The gang was stranded
A cabbie came to help them
Yeevol saved the day

I forgot if Haiku’s go 5-7-5 or 7-5-7 syllables, so I’ll do both, just to cover my ass.

We had a dead battery
We were out to dry
A boost from Yeevol saved us

Feb 10th - Do The Real Estate Boogie

2008-02-13T20:18:00.001-08:00

So I found out that the underlying reason for this little trip to Hainan was so that my wife’s mother could look at real estate. She wants to be a snow bird, Harbin, which is in the North, is -20 today. Sanya, where we are, is a stifling +22 Celsius. That’s a 40 degree difference without leaving the country! We looked at a couple different places, one called Crabapple Bay, which was sort of like a little beach community, and then we looked at a brand new development called Serenity Coast.

We were taken to one of the Show Rooms at Serenity Coast up on the 14th floor. There was an amazing view of the Hills to our right, and the water ad sandy beaches to the left. I’ve never been to L.A. but I hear it looks like this. I’m in a postcard! When I looked down, directly beneath us, I saw the labour camp. It’s Sunday today, and all the workers who are building these condos have the day off. I can see them playing cards and Ma-jong, smoking and drinking beer. Looks like a good time! O tell you the truth, no offense towards anyone, but I’d rather be hanging out with those people than with the rich snobs spending millions on these apartments. I’d probably fit in a lot more.

As the development grows and grows, some of the natural beauty will be lost, it’s inevitable. I think that’s a dilemma that we don’t think about too much in Canada. We have so much land and so few people compared to China. This country is roughly the same size of Canada, but nearly half of the world’s population lives here. Classified as a developing nation, China seems like it is trying to catch up with North America, Europe, and other Developed Nations. But I can philosophize forever. Now we dance!

At Serenity Coast, they like a welcome reception for all the would-be home buyers. There were snacks, drinks (that you had to pay for, of course) and some traditional Chinese dancers. Not like the silk-veiled, prancing type that we always think of in North America, this was an intense work out going on. I could tell because the dancers were all seriously fit. My wife pointed out this one girl’s les, which were like a horse’s, only much more feminine. I found myself staring at her, as she jumped around like a gymnast. And I didn’t feel guilty for staring, because my wife pointed them out! The perfect crime. Plus, she probably didn’t mind me staring. She looked like, if she felt uncomfortable, she could probably kick my ass.

Now comes the part of the show when they invite the audience up on stage to try. One of the dancers, not tank legs but still really fit, grabbed me and pulled me up on stage. I looked at my wife for approval – she had her camera out. Either that’s a sign of approval or she’d going to use these photos for blackmail later. She was smiling and waving me on, so it was all good. Of course I was the only white guy around for miles, and probably the first one this dancer had ever touched.

Now to describe the way they were dancing. There were 2 rows of people kneeling down and facing each other, 5 people to a row. There were 10 bamboo poles on the ground between them, and each person held onto the end of one in each hand. Think of it like 10 skipping ropes, only the ropes are bamboo. The idea was for me to run down the middle, stepping between the poles. The thing is, this was like some sort of American Gladiators event where they’d lift up the poles, slide them apart, creating little obstacle course for me to run through, all while holding hands with this gazelle, who has done it a million times and moves with the speed of Riverdance.

I played football for one season my senior year and I remember the tire drill. I was actually quite good at it. At my very first practice, the coach thought it would be a gas to send me through the tire drill, and then have me tackle someone at the end. I ran through as hard as I could, determined to wipe the shit-eating grin off their faces ( I guess the new guys usually fall all over the place in this drill) and then I tackled this “superstar” player into the ground. I had no idea he was the starting quarterback, otherwise I wouldn’t have planted him so hard. It turns out I gave him whiplash and he was out for the rest of the season. The coach never “tested” me like that again, well at least when my teammates were the tackling dummies.

I didn’t tackle anybody at the end of the bamboo dance, but I managed to move my feet faster than the rest of the volunteers. You know those sneakers with the lights in them? If I was wearing those I probably would have given the kid in the front row a seizure. I wonder why they don’t make those shoes in adult sizes? Probably because of idiots like me, who would insist that they put them in every pair of shoes I own, including the shoes I wore down the aisle on my wedding day.

Anyway, I ended up getting a bigger applause than the actual performers, so they brought me up to do it again. I don’t know if I helped them sell any condos, but I sure as hell put the crowd in a good mood. “Dancing white man brings very good fortune” – can hear the real estate agents saying it now. “He’s Craaaaaaazy about our prices! Come dance the blues away in one of our exquiset beach-front properties!” I can’t wait for my commission cheques to start roling in. Bambooya!

Tranny-sylvania

2008-02-13T20:17:00.001-08:00

The tour guide asked me if I liked Chinese songs. Sure, I’ll give any music a listen. A good song speaks to you in any language and all that jazz. Especially jazz. Nothing like a good round of sax to please the senses. Then he said we were going to see a transvestite singer. I wasn’t sure if something got lost in translation or f he was joking. I soon found out that he was serious, and not only were there transvestites, but some of the “performers” were completely snipped, and had fake boobs, long nails and their voices changed.

Outside n the parking lot, it was like a crazed mob was moving in on the theatre. There must have been 10,000 people all standing around, waiting for the 1 person who got in line to buy 3500 tickets at the group rate. Our tour guide was standing in line al civil-like, but the problem was, there were too many line weasels. The kind who sneak up from the side and act like they were there first. Our guide must have stood n one place for 20 minutes, watching the line sharks get their tickets ahead of him. It was only when Mother In Law complained to a security guard that they started to enforce the line. A cattle prod would have been useful in this situation.

Inside the theatre, things weren’t much different. We ran up to the balcony and grabbed some seats in the front row. Our group was all split up, but I made sure I was sitting next to my wife so she could tranny-slate for me. People kept running around, looking for seats and then started standing at the back. They clearly over-sold this show. I would be pissed off if I had to stand, because the show was 2 hours long.

The warm-up act was some sort of stand-up comedian who threw cheesy sound effects in with his routine. Of course I have no idea what he’s talking about, only that he’s pretending he’s on a motorcycle, then talking on a cell phone. He pretended to be a chicken for a while, then he started beatboxing. The crowd was going wild, but I wasn’t amused. This guy’s sound effects really sucked. I’m sorry, but once you see Rahzel the Godfather of Noise, there’s no going back. I saw another guy named Killa Kella who was pretty good, but nobody can touch Rahzel.

Just then, the emcee of the show came out on stage, wearing a sparkly silver vest and blazer (I guess when you’re introducing trans-sexuals, you can wear pretty much anything and look like Hulk Hogan). Actually he sounded kind of like a wrestler. Now, the moment we had all been waiting for – it was time to bring out the tranny’s. They paraded them out in different costumes – first Egyptian, then Chinese dresses, all to music corresponding to that country. There was one that could have been the U.S.A. but I wasn’t sure. There were a bunch of actual dudes dancing around in cowboy hats and chaps, and then a former dude, danced into the middle of the sage, all of them lip-synching some crappy pop song that I’ve probably heard, but changed the radio station half way through it.

This kept going on for a while, until they paraded all of the trans-sexuals out on the stage, introduced them with names like MiMi and Xiu Xiu, and then they announced that you could have your picture taken with them if you pay a fee. I started to get this really bad feeling in my stomach. I don’t know why, but looking at the Trannies’ faces made me feel sorry for them. Most of them had on “Price is Right” girl smiles, but there were a couple who atually looked kind of sad. They paraded them out into the lobby, as it was now half time. People in the audience were acting all crazy like they just HAD to get closer. It was like the zoo all over again. People paid $150 each to see the men who turned themselves into women.

I guess it’s pretty rare in China to get a sex change. They showed us a video at intermission to “educate” everyone about the different hormones, drugs and operations that these guys went through in order to entertain us. It showed China’s first trans-sexual. The crowd was all holding their mouths and turning away as they showed the before and after pictures. For most of them, I think this was the first time they had even heard about a trans sexual, let alone seeing one.

Just then, they brought out another performer, and this one was really singing. It sounded like Bea Arthur, you know from Golden Girls, if she was singing a Whitney Houston song. Then, to show us that The Wizard of Bras really did exist, they brought up a little girl from the crowd, gave her a microphone and had them sing karaoke together, trading vocal lines. The Tranny, whose name was MiMi by the way (probably short for Michael I’m guessing), would alternate between her male voice and her estrogen tablet-induced Bea Arthur Voice. The crowd was gasping and clapping in circus-style amazement.

After they paraded out the 7 or 8 Tranny’s again, the show was over, and we stated to leave. On our way out, the transvestites would grab at us and try to get us to take a picture with them (for a price, of course). Up close you could really tell that they were men. Thick make-up covered their craggy faces and sunken eyes. A couple of them looked pretty unhealthy. I put my head down and plowed through the crowd, probably taking a few press-on nails with me, as they all tried to sink their meaty claws into me. I guess this is how they make extra money. It’s kind f sad I think. The whole show was a bit like a freak show.

Afterwards we went out for dinner and I managed to open up a whole can of worms. Most people would just smile and nod, not saying a word, when asked if they liked the show. I said I didn’t like it. Big mistake. Now, I don’t know what exactly was said amongst my Chinese compadres, but my wife said she was arguing that the trannies are people, and it’s cruel to make a spectacle out of them like that and laugh at them. On the other side of the table, Mother In Law said that she doesn’t agree with the idea of changing your gender. Our driver called the whole thing “Devil Art”, yet he brought his 8-year old son to watch.

Our tour guide said he supported the show because it educates the people about trans-sexuals. Lots of different opinions were being expressed. I wasn’t saying anything (because I can’t speak Mandarin), but I couldn’t help but feel responsible for starting this whole battle. I didn’t think a simple “no” would launch a full-scale nuclear war, but it did. It ended when Mother In Law told the tour guide that we are his clients, and he shouldn’t argue with his clients. Like a true Canadian, I remained neutral, just sitting there drinking my beer.

Plants & Foreign Species

2008-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

I know we depend on trees and plants to support us and keep us alive, but I don’t exactly get pumped up to see chrysanthemums and lychee nuts. However, at the botanical gardens, they had lots of cool plants and trees, some poisonous, and some very exotic (not like the dancers though). You can tell the ones that are out of place – the palm trees that are planted in rock beds, just to show I guess that you can find a tree between a rock and a hard place.

At one end of the gardens, they had a laboratory where they were experimenting with all sorts of cross-breeding and super-plants. I got a mental picture or Little Barbershop of Horrors with that giant Venus flytrap or that movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. This should be cool! But they didn’t let us go in. I guess it’s an insurance thing. They did show us the cocoa plants, vanilla beans and coffee plantation though. I was joking that if we saw a tobacco plant, our driver would jump the fence and start shoving it in his pockets. That guy smokes like a brushfire. There was no tobacco, but they took us into a little picnic area and started serving us stuff they grew there. Tea, coffee, hot cocoa, and cocoa coffee. I think that was one of the experimental plants – a cross-bred cocoa/coffee bean. It tasted really good though, so we bought a bag of it. Maybe if I plant one of the beans back in Vancouver, and I climb a magic bean stalk to a giant Starbucks in the Sky!

We left the botanical gardens and on the way out, I was getting lots of stares from the locals as they passed me. I felt like an exhibit again. I thought they should have put a sign on me that said “White Guy” and charge 5 bucks a look. Then I could pee in a cup and call it Cauca-coffe. I’d be rich! Or at least somebody would be rich. I doubt any of the trees make any money off ticket sales.

Feb 9 - 2009 Crocodile Dung Dee

2008-02-13T00:36:00.000-08:00

I have no idea what's planned for today. i just follow along, smile, and ask my wife to translate things for me once in a while. She said most of the discussions are pointless crap, but now and then they'll say "hot springs" or "Waterslides" and she tells me. Hmmm a hot tub waterslide. now that would be a good invention. The hot water would give you a relaxing, yet exciting ride, then plunge you into a pot of boiling water at the end like a hot dog in swimming trunks. Lifeguards could stand by to apply mustard and relish on you, and Dog's your uncle.

So we decided not to go to the hot springs today, instead going for a boat ride in a place called Boao. It was really cool - 3 rivers meet in this one pool and it created a giant sand bar. You can only get there by boat, and it looks like you are in hawaii or something. There are palm trees everywhere, and locals sit there selling fresh coconuts and mangos and pineapples. It's a bit like being in the tropics, only everyone is Chinese except me. My wife bought a pineapple, all nicely peeled and placed on a stick like a giant lollypop, for 1 Yuan (15 cents) and our driver bought me a huge coconut, which they chopped the top of with a machete and stuck a crazy straw in. it was very tasty. With a little rum, I would be in heave. Actually, I was in Boao, but I think they are probably neighbors. Not close neighbors, but the kind who live on 2 farms that are next to each other.

Besides the fruit vendors, people are walking around on the beach, selling sunglasses, hats, and trying to take your photo for money. You could put on the traditional Chinese clown pants and bowling shirt and get your picture taken in front of the ocean. As much as I liked playing dressup as a kid (RIP Ernie Coombs aka Mr Dressup), I opted out. There was something else that cought my eye. This guy was walking around with a Caman (smaller version of a crocodile)and for 10 Yuan, you could hold it and get your picture taken. Being foreign, I got special treatment. I got to hug it, put it on my shoulders, put it down on the ground at let it walk around while I pulled it's tail and all that toturous stuff. If I was that animal, I would have bit Whitey's head off, but they had his mouth taped shut. I felt kinda bad for little guy, but he'd probably die out here with all the boats and pollution and stuff. He was pretty heavy too, so they must feed him okay.

After I had my fill of crock, we went to an aquarium. In Vancouver, we have a pretty large one, but nothing like Sea World, or Marine Land, or so I hear. But still, it's good for a nice day of family fun. This one was a huge disappointment. They barely had any animals! The big draw was a giant whale skeleton, which I posed with. There were also giant tortoises swimming in a tank, which you could get a picture with if you pay. A couple of sharks were swimming around in a tank, but they didn't look too healthy, and were kinda scrawny. I think they were Anorexic.

Once you exit the exhibit area, you have to walk through the giant gift shop that is almost the same size as the aquarium itself. People yell at you from all sides to buy their products. I had to cover my ears in some spots, because I was caught in a yelling crossfire between 2 barnum & bailey's type salespeople. What I wouldn't give to be a turtle right now - they don't have ears do they? At least I could go inside my shell if I didn't want to buy an ash tray made out of one of my young.

Haiku

2008-02-13T00:07:00.000-08:00

The first city we visited on our little tour of Hainan province is called haikuo - at first I thought it was spelled like the poem, and everybody went around all day speaking in Haiku's. You know, something like:

Nathan is very hungry
So he ate an egg
Now he is regretting it

But no, it's not even pronounced the same. Then I thought about what a nerd I must be to get excited about that. You'd think it was Limerick Junction or something - or maybe Punsylvania. Yeah, that's more up my alley. It would be like Transylvania, only the punpires would go around trying to suck your best puns from you. The only way to repel them would be by reciting prose from period novels or something, you know bore them to death, or life, or send them back to the pun-derworld.

So I guess we're gonna drive around Haikou with a tour guide for 2 days. First, we are going to see a volcano, then visit an animal reserve. Wouldn't it be cooler if they combined the 2? You could have llama's swimming in lava and magma-monkeys swinging from stelactytes. That would be awesome! The volcano was pretty cool. It's dormant now, so quite cool, actually. We walked to the top where you can get a really nice view of Haikou city on a clear day. It was cloudy, so I got a really nice view of other tourists. Still, it was nice.

At the animal reserve, we saw lots of different creatures: more tourists, t-shirt peddlers, janitors, and oh yeah, animals. At first you stay in your car and drive through the lion zone, then elephants, bears, and finally you can get out of your car at the Giraffe pen, watch wild horses kick each other, and camels with very peculiarly-shaped toes. I felt sorry for the elephants, because the babies could roam free but the huge guys were attached toa chain. I guess they tried to escape once to see an advanced screening of the Elephant Man.

We parked our car and got out to finish the tour on fot. I was pretty excited when I heard we were going to Monkee Mountain. I was hoping they would have Michael Nesmith chained to a tree and you could fling dung at him for a buck. How disappointed I was when I found out they were only actual monkeys who could fling dung at you for free while you tried to take their picture. I think some people were littering at Monkey Mountain, because I saw one monkey carrying around an empty pop bottle, while another one had a chip bag in his hand. Maybe we could hire these little custodians to help clean up the downtown east side back in Vancouver... heck they's work for peanuts, or bananas, or stuffed crust pizzas or whatever monkeys eat nowadays. Then I thought about what would happen if they got into the heroin and crack down there - now that would be grounds for a reality tv show - Junkie Monkeys - I can see it now!

After they took me to Monkey Town, I saw some Hippos swimming around in a lake. I heard they cause more human deaths per year than any other animal in the wild. Being the only caucasian around, I figured they might have mistaken my head for a small white marble, so I got outta there. If these guys were truly Hungry Hungry Hippos, then I didn't want to hang around to find out.

i walked around a bit more and saw crocodiles, lions, tigers, ligers (it's exactly how it sounds), orangutans, and in one cage, A Flock of Seagulls. I guess since the 80's ended, the band hasn't had any hits so they'll probably take any gigs they can get. Birthday Parties, nature reserves, AA meetings.. Anything that will help give them that big beak.

After we left the Ani-mall (I'm pretty sure you could buy them if you brought a suitcase full of money), we went out for dinner with a bunch of friends of my Mother In Law. I guess it's customary to call any man who is older than you "Uncle" here in China. Apparently I have 50 million Uncles over here I didn't know about. But that's China for ya, one big happy family. They ordered a whole bunch of dishes, all placed on a giant turntable so you could spin it if you want to get the squid on the other side, or if you want to pretend you are DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Shrimp.

My uncles ordered 2 bottles of hard liquor, which my wife told me is equivalent to moonshine back home. I guess they figured they could get me drunk and have fun looking at the drunk white boy. I felt like the hippo's back at the zoo. Little did they know, my Maritime blood allows me to drink like Boris Yelson but stay sober like that 1 Russian guy. I downed shot after shot, and besides the Lysol-like flavour and the subtle bouquet of paint thinner, I was doing just fine. This one uncle got insanely drunk and started saying Vancouver over and over, but he was pronouncing it Vanawa. Something about his daughter and wife left him and went to Vanawa. Poor guy, couldn't even stand up straight to propose a toast.

They also served us a glass of Yop, but it wasn't flavoured, like the stuff we get back home. I'm not a big fan of yogurt, i usually call it flavoured mayo, so I "accidentally" spilled mine. Darn! But lo and behold, the waitress appeared with a fresh glass. Usually I enjoy good wait staff, but this one picked the wrong time to suddenly offer good service. Needless to say I forgot to drink it. We all walked (some more upright than others) off the boat and went back to the hotel. Did I mention that we ate dinner on the Love Boat that night? Well we did.

Take Off!

2008-02-12T23:59:00.000-08:00

So I just heard from my wife that we'll be leaving Harbin and flying South today. I was watching the news (yes watching, not listening) and I saw the temperatures in Southern China were around 20 degrees Celsius. That's +20, not -20! Holy crap, I didn't bring my shorts! Maybe I can just cut a pair of my jeans off at the knees, but maybe they don't do that here, and what if I cut them too high, then I'll look like Daisy Duke, and I haven't been doing my step aerobics lately! Plus I only brought my good jeans! I spent $50 on one pair, and that's a lot for me.

I already know which clothes not to bring - my winter parka, scarf, toque (by the way there is no Chinese translation for toque), gloves and wool socks. I packed my rain gear just in case, and a sweater in case it gets cold at night. I didn't hear about this trip until just now, otherwise I would have packed my flip flops!

I didn't want to lug around my giant suitcase that my brother gave me (came in very handy), so I just threw some stuff into a backpack and took off. I think we are going for a week, so as long as I have enough clean socks and underwear, I should be alright. In North America, we think it's blasse' to wear the same shirt 2 days in a row, but in China, it's considered a waste if you wash something that isn't really dirty. Being a musician, I've gone a lot longer than 2 days without changing my jeans, so I felt right at home. Plus, I've learned to eat more slowly so as not to turn my t-shirts into Picasso's.

Pains, Trains & Automobiles Continued...

2008-02-12T23:44:00.001-08:00

I just found out why Volkswagen is the most popular car here. After the Cold War, in 1982 or so, VW was the first joint venture between a Western European company and Chinese investors. The original plane is still operational and profiting every year.

I had a good discussioni with my wife's cousin Patrick, an English-speaking 28-year-old who lives in Beijing. He is in charge of the European market at a huge automobile distributor. We also talked about Ford. I saw 1 Ford car since I've come to Harbin. He said it must be a one-off. There is nowhere you can buy Ford in Harbin. Either somebody drove it here from another country, like Russia, or they bought it used, or even had it shipped here. I told Patrick how our auto industry in Canada relies heavily on the US market. In China, they are much more self-reliant, but that can be a good thing or a bad thing.

I think China is like that one sheltered kid everyone grew up with. He only hangs around with his parents, or people his mom invites over for play dates. There is very little external pressure in China. Sure, they have the big North American brands here, trying to penetrate the market. Nike, Kappa, and Playboy, but the people here don't know what that brand stands for - they just know that the tv tells them they want it. Playboy for example, is just a clothing brand over here. Nobody really knows what Playboy stands for because pornography and magazines that show topless girls are banned here. But it's so popular in North America that Chinese people want to try to emulate the Americans. That's one thing that bugs me about China. The brand of jeans you wear or the car you drive is more important than what's in your head.

On the other side of the coin, every Chinese person knows who Yao Ming is. He IS basketball here. Before Yao made it to the NBA, I bet maybe 1/20th of the country knew what the NBA was. Now that there is a Chinese person playing (well 2 acyually, Yi plays for Milwaukee now), you see NBA t-shirts everywhere on little kids. That's great for the league, and sure for Chinese national pride, but most people don't know that the league was around for decades before Yao Ming. The other night I was excited because they were showing an NBA game - sports are at least something I can watch without having to listen to the dialogue - But they edited the game and only showed the parts when Yao Ming touched the ball! What a crock of shit! An entire game took 20 minutes to watch because Yao was the only thing they cared about!

So, I kind of got off topic there, but basically, having a foreign car, jeans or anything here in China means you have some sort of status above everyboy else. VW saw that opportunity and struck up a joint venture with a local investor. Now they are coining it, and I'm watching 1/5 of an NBA game, just because Yao ming is on the court. Oh well, I'll just hop in a VW Jetta taxi and go home.

Feb 7th, 2008 - New Year's Eve Was A BLAST!!!

2008-02-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

Firecrackers, Roman Candles, and Whirly-birds are going off in every direction you look. We have the perfect view from our downtown apartment building. I can turn my head in any direction and there are fireworks, firecrackers and explosions galore! One of the displayswould have easily cost $10,000 in Canada probably cost about $10 here in China, the birthplace of Fireworks.

The blatant disregard for people's homes and the rest of humanity gave me a chuckle. Since we are downtown, and the buildings are quite close to one another, fireworks are bouncing off the windows and going all over the place. Just now, one bounced off my window, right in front of my face. It's a good thing I didn't open the window to get a better view, or my face would be lit up like a birthday cake.

Down on the street, there are long snakes of firecrackers, 20 or 30 feet long. cracking away, as little kids wave sparklers in the air. What a sight! This is going on all over China simultaneously. Anybody who can afford a firecracker has shelled out for the occasion. We bought a big bag of fireworks for later. I'm gonna try not to blow my hand off in the process. This is my 2nd New Year's celebration of 2008. I could get all philosophical about that, but I won't. The funny thing is, it's only 7:00! Just wait till midnight, my wife tells me.

5 Hours Later

It's midnight, my ears are ringing, and I just got handed a 16-shot Roman Candle. This is awesome! I've had a few Hapi's so my aim is a little off. I aimed one at the ground 10 feet in front of me, just for fun. Unfortunately with all the firecrackers going off, the paper left behind caught on fire! I ran over to stamp it out, and a few "duds" that didn't go off the first time around were exploding under my feet. I just started a highly explosive brushfire, and no matter how hard I dance on the spot, it won't go out. Finally, my wife comes over and helps me get it under control. I can see the headlines now "Harbin city burned to the ground -White man to blame."

Everyone is coming outside now with their fireworks cache, so I'm going to retreat back to the 18th floor to watch. Now for another New Year's Tradion - after midnight, you have to eat dumplings! Yum Yum!

That's The Price You Pay When You Visit China

2008-02-06T00:04:00.001-08:00

I'm starting to get the hang of the whole currency conversion thing. I've got it worked out in my head that it's a 7 to 1 ratio. 1 Canadian Dollar equals 7 Yuen, the local currency. Some things don't add up though. Certain products are an incredibly good deal over here, while others would be cheaper in Canada. For example, I was drinking beer with my father-in-law yesterday, and he told me (through translation) that each 600ml bottle costs 2.50 Yuen. I worked it out in my head. That's about 35 cents Canadian, or so my beery brain told me. That's insane! As I said before, a pack of smokes is about $1 CDN or less, depending on the brand you smoke. I am not a smoker, but if I was, I'd be in tar-filled heaven! These are of course domestic products.

The beer we were drinking, Harbin Beer, is the top of the line as far as the local beers go. He had another brand called Snow Beer, which costs about 25 cents CDN for the same bottle. It's still decent beer, but for the extra 10 cents, I'll go for Hapi, as the locals call it. Best 35 cents I ever spent! Consider that a six-pack of domestic beer back in Vancouver costs around $12. Sheesh. A 600 ml bottle of Molson Canadian would probably cost $2.50 back home, and the bottle of Hapi is 2.50 here, only in Yuen. The number is the same, but the Chinese are getting killed in the conversion.

I think domestically made products are priced according to the local economy. I asked Ba (Dad) if they export this beer. He shook his head. I imagine it would probably cost them more to ship it than to make it. Still, I thinkn it's pretty good beer, and I'm sure it would fetch a good price in other countries.

Domestic products are cheap, but imported products like cell phones (most come from Korea or Japan) cost more than back home. I told you about my trip to the Cell Phone Mall, well the Sony Ericcson my wife bought cost her $500 CDN. That's a lot of beer money. I'm going out today to buy a pair of running shoes today. My runners are probably fine for a couple more months, but Mama offered and I'll gladly accept the gift. I'm just about ready to leave now, so I'll report back when I have the shoes.

3 Hours Later

Ok, I'm back from the mall now. It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be. I was expecting the Cavalry Stampede like at Cellular Planet, but I guess because it's Chinese New Year's Eve today, everyone is at home with their families. Lucky me!

So I wanted to report on how much I spent on a pair of runners. I looked for the nicest, most comfortable pair I could find. I go for function over fashion, always have. I guess that's a bit out of the ordinary here in China, the land of 3-D haircuts a-la Flock of Seagulls and Spray Painted jeans of today's youth. I ended up going with a pair of Nike Air Turbulance shoes. The salesperson said they were the newest ones in, and they felt damn good on my feet. The price tag - 740 Yuen. Crunching the numbers, that's about $106 CDN. I'm pretty sure these shoes would be around the $150 - $200 mark back home, but I'd have to go to Athlete's World or something to check it out and compare prices.

I found an athletic shirt for 280 yuen ($40) and some track pants for 350 Yuen ($50). In total, I spent under $200 for new runners, a shirt and a pair of track pants. I think i would spend around the same in Canada, but going for the bargain-priced, last year's model, etc like I always do. These on the other hand, are the New Arrival, front of the rack stuff. I don't usually like to brag about possessions and stuff, but I think I got my money's worth today.

Afterthought: A bottle of water (500ml) was 2.50 Yuen out of the fridge. That's the same price as the 600ml beer. Now that's a tough decision.

After-Aftethought: The same bottle of water was 10 Yuen at the airport cafetieria in Beijing. I think I got Shanghai'd on that one.

More Than Words

2008-02-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

No, Not the mega-ballad by 90's accoustic duo Extreme.

Okay, so I'm pretty limited with what I can say in Mandarin. I was joking around that I'm like a deaf mute here. Maybe it would be easier to learn sign languauge... It's universal isn't it? Well, except for the letters. Spelling something in English is probably easier than trying to form one of those Chinese symbols with your fingers. Deaf Chinese people must all be double-jointed.

I can probably say about 10-12 words/phrases. I'm always learning new ones, but my brain can only hold so much of the new language. Most stuff gets forgotten before I have a chance to use it again. It's really difficult to remember things! I can repeat them back like some sort of circus monkey when you give me a peanut and everyone gets a kick out of how perfectly I can mimic the words. I can usually resort back to the dozen or so broken phrases I have in the ol' thinking bin. For Donald Sutherland's sake, we'll call them the Dirty Dozen. Maybe he'll get a royalty check from this this. Us Ex-Pat New Brunswickers stick together! Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland Donald Sutherland - there, I just bought him another bottle of Hennessey.

So I've said before that Chinese people love to speak in parables. The lingo is apparently chock full of hoity toity, flowery sayings meant to confuse you. My wife tells me that people intentionally try to confuse you and make the discussion hard to follow so they'll seem smarter than you. Sounds a lot like my old Business Law class! We were watching a tv show the other day and the premise was these 4 guys trying to get to the top of a mountain to meet Kung Fu Master Larry who hangs out there. The strange thing was, they kept stopping every 2 minutes to yak at each other. They actually had a yak with them, carrying their bow staffs & things, but it's just a coincidence that I chose that word. I could have just said, they stopped to talk, but I did what I did, didn't I? Anyway, they started to spout off their meaningless jargon like "You can lead a turnip to water, but bleeding a horse dry is like teaching a carrot a new trick."

On another channel I found a Star Trek movie. I'm not sure which one it was, maybe #6 or 15, I'm not sure. There are so many damn sequels. It was dubbed in Mandarin, of course, but I've seen this one before so I kind of knew what was going on. It was the one where Picard meets Captain Kirk at the end and they fight off Sting and escape from Nexus.. Then Data cries when he finds his cat. I was wondering if they did a direct translation, or if they had ol' Bill Shatner saying things like "A... Bird in the hand is worth... A Kiss from a rose on the bay" (It's not easy to write a dramatic pause like that. I think you have to be from montreal or at least sleep with a few Romulans to get the hang of it.). For the sake of the Chinese viewers, I hope they went with the parables. The more outlandish the better, too. The essence of Captain James T Kirk should be celebrated in every culture.

Oh, and I found out that everything is dubbed here in China. TV, movies, no matter what language they are in. I'm pretty sure the actors speak Chinese anyway, but they are dubbed no matter what. I think it's a deal to get voice actors more work, or maybe you don't have to have a good voice to act over here. The biggest bodybuilder probably sounds like a pipsqueak or one of the Sedin Twins, but insert the Chinese version of Sly Stallone's voice, and you better watch out!

After Star Trek 37 was over, we wandered around until dinner time. We headed home and sat down to eat. Mother-in-law's cell phone kept ringing every 2 minutes and she looked frustrated. Ok, I thought. Time to turn on the White Boy charm! Without using a single word, I made her laugh. When the phone started up again, I pretended to throw it out the window and watch it soar down 18 floors. I did a pretty good panto-mime routine or holding my hand to my mouth like "Uh Oh!" She got a good kick out of that. i saw her telling everyone about it afterwards and she was reinacting what I did. Score one for the son-in-law! Without using a single word from the Dirty Dozen, I just moved up to deck swab on the U.S.S. Mothership-in-law.

Pains, Trains & Automobiles

2008-02-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

I already wrote about the flight to China - that never-ending marathon by 350 passenger airbus. Not looking forward to doing that again. Did I mention the rebels who decided to sneak a ciggy in the bathroom? We,, take my advice... If you are ever on a 13-hour flight to China, request a seat far away from the bathroom. I was once a smoker, and when you're hooked, that's a long time to go inhaling nothing but recycled air. Plus, in China everybody smokes. I was shocked at the price of ciggarettes. It was $11.00 US for a carton (10 packs) - basically a buck a pack. Heck, at those prices, I can't afford NOT to smoke!

When we drove to our temporary home up here on the 13th floor, it was around midnight, so the traffic was pretty minimal. BUT at 9am when everyone is going to work, it's a different story. Looking out the window, I can see the jangled mess that is the morning commute. On an average street, there are 2 or 3 lanes going each way. Magically, 8 to 10 cars manage to fit in these 4 lanes! If a car approaches a traffic jam, rather than sit & wait for the long line of cars to move, our friendly neighborhood driver will simply pull into oncoming traffic, create his own lane and try to gun it past the gridlock. If you are a pedestrian, look out!

Crossing the street in Harbin is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. Sure, the light is red and the little man is flashing on the cross walk, but that's no reason to get cocky. You could still get smoked pretty easily. Red lights are only "suggestions" in these parts, and cars are apparently more important than pedestrians. I guess the raw materials in a car are worth more than human life. I went out for a walk yesterday, and believe me, I took my time.

The locals are more brave than I. They remind me of the locals down on Main & Hastings in Vancouver, only without the crackhead swagger. They'll walk out, stand on the yellow center line, waiting for the exact right moment to jaunt out. It's a bit like that old arcade game "frogger". Old lady moves one space forward, motorcycle whizzes by.... car slams on brakes and pulls a U-turn around old lady... all the while Player 1 looks cool, calm & collected. She's definitely the frog in charge - The Toad of the Road if you will. Oh and I think you will.

Driving in a car is another story. Of course I didn't get behind the wheel. You think I have a death wish?? I was in the front passenger seat as our driver, or actually my mother in law's company chauffeur drove us to the market. I like to call him Chang Andretti. Oh the market... that's another story. I'll focus on the getting there for now. It's pretty scary to look at the 8 car-abreast gridlock from 18 floors up, in our swanky apartment, but when you're in the middle of it, you are sort of like a salmon swimming upstream through a slouce or something. Or maybe when the 3 stooges all get stuck trying to go through a door t the same time and their heads make that coconut sound. Cloink!

My wife said "Are you nervous?" "Heck, no!" I said, as a van almost slammed into us. Then I noticed a police car. It wasn't like to Crown Victoria boats back home. It was a little Jetta. I have noticed that Volkswagen is the most popular vehicle here in Harbin. I guess that's because they are mostly compact, fuel efficiant, and run forever (No I do not have a Volkswagen sponsorship... yet), plus they are built here in China. Just then, the cop put his siren on, but nobody moved to the side of the road like we do in Canada. A taxi actually cut him off! Now that's ignoring the law!

I noticed that nobody drives the mega-SUV like back home. I try to crunch some numbers in my head to figure out which would be worse on the environment. 1 billion or so compact cars in China or 100 million or so SUVs in the United States. Any mathematicians out there?

Luckily, we survived our Hell Ride and made it to the market. As I looked inside, I noticed the people navigate the aisles the same way they drive! Damn, I wish I could put on a seatbelt in this place! Anybody see a police officer who can help me? Oh, right, he's stuck in traffic.

Feb 5th, 2008 - What's for Dinner? And Breakfast?

2008-02-05T16:55:00.001-08:00

I wrote earlier about going out for dinner with the food pusher brigade, but I didn't go into too much detail about the food. Back home, we'll usually cook one main dish and maybe a side or two. Except of course Thanksgiving. I pull out all the stops on Turkey day. Anyone who's been over for the meal of their lives can tell you that. Here in China though, there's always about 10 different dishes on the table, each one completely different from the others. And that whole myth about them eating dog and cat over here, it's just a myth.

I'm a meat eater. When I was a kid I had a collection of T-bones rotting in my closet, but that's another story. I grew up with Chinese food that generally tasted good while you ate it, but then you felt like crap a couple hours later. Let's call it Yuk Poo. The food I've had this past week has been a far cry from Yuk Poo's. I'm amazed every single meal. There's always fresh seafood, plenty of veggies, and the starches are more than your boiled potatoes. The idea is, you take 2 or 3 bites of one dish, then move on to the next. No mixing so as not to spoil the flavour. When you eat this way, you never feel like you're overeating because you move from veggies to soup to rice to bread (which is excellent by the way. Better than Wonder Bread) to meat. It's all very good, and leaves you feeling energized afterwards.

The other night we had 2 huge King Crabs in the centre of the table. They were fresh as hell, I could tell. Mostly because they were still moving around earlier in the day when I went to the sink to wash my hands. I ate a bit of this, a bit of that and finished up with a couple of crab legs. Mmmmmm. I learned a new saying today: Wo I Chi. It literally means "I love to eat". But when you point at the food you are eating, it means "I love this food". Everyone got a big kick out of that. We all finished packing it in and everyone was full. The leftovers were all put away and I thought "Sweet! Those crabs are going to make another appearance tomorrow night!"

I went to bed with my belly full and the evil hunger forces at bay. We keep eating dinner later and later every night, and I've been having very strange dreams because of it. I woke up in the morning and lurched my way to the breakfast table. There, sitting on the table were the 2 crabs from the night before! Crab for breakfast?!?! Damn right! I dug in. This really was the breakfast of Kings. Can't wait to see what's for dinner tonight! I have a feeling it won't be Cap N Crunch.

Feb 4th, 2009 - Cell Phone Mall

2008-02-04T17:58:00.001-08:00

Today my wife wanted to go out and buy a cell phone. Sounded simple enough, so I agreed to come along. Back home in Vancouver, that would entail walking up to a little kiosk at the mall, pointing to the phone you want, then paying for & activating it and away you go! Not in China. Here, you have to pass through Cellular Armageddon first.

In my mind, I pictured going to the little kiosk. In actuality, we went to the Big Box Store of cellular phones. It was kind of like a small city formed when man and cell phone joined forces to take over the free world. I call it Cellular Planet. I'm not sure what it's actually called; I couldn't read the sign.

At Cellular Planet, there are 4 floors of cell phone madness, and in order to buy a phone, you have to visit all 4 floors. At first, we talked toa greeter on the first floor. It was sort of a Universal Foyer, in that it was the size of a small universe. The greeter told us to go up to the second floor where we were shown a few basic models, then they sent us up to the 3rd floor, where all hell was breaking lose. Picture it like in the movies when they show stock brokers on Wall Street, yelling "Buy, Sell! Buy Sell!" Except here it was "Buy Cell! Buy Cell!".

At Cellular Planet, every brand of cell phone was represented in spades. There were Nokia stands, Motorolla, LG, Sony, Samsung and a bunch of local brands. Each brand had a big glass counter with every new model on display. There was always a girl in a red vest standing there with a little smiley face pinned on the vest. As you walked past, she'd try to put a cell phone in your hand. I guess by touching it, you've made the decision that you're interested in buying that phone.

I gotta say, these girls were true salespeople. I went to school with a few sales guys in business school, and they couldn't touch these girls. They would smile at the guys, call them over and put a cell phone in their hand. Transaction complete. Since I wasn't buying anything, I sort of hung back by the wall. It was hot as hell in there too. I think that was another sales strategy. They make it unbearably hot so nobody wants to stick around for too long. Basically they want to sell youa phone and get you the hell outta there so they can pile more customers in.

Not to say my wife is a shopaholic, but I think she is a very patient shopper. She'll go up and down the isles, looking at all the different phones, never taking one in her hand but asking tons of questions. She knew in her mind what the best phone in the place was, but she had to do some investigating first. maybe there was some new model that they were hiding out back that you had to give the secret handshake in order to see or something. I get very restless in shopping malls and tend to just hang back and observe. I hate hanging around places like this with all the pushing and shoving and yelling. It reminds me of the Royal Rumble in wrestling.

When someone finds a phone they like, they of course have to test out the speakers to see how loud they will go. This one jackass had the speaker right beside my head when I was sitting down on a stool I scooped from some dude. Of course the jackass held the speaker far away from his own ear to test it. He wouldn't want to deafen himself! What I wouldn't give for a pair of earplugs... Oh well, if I hang around here long enough, I won't need them anyway. I'll be permanently deaf. I wonder if they have those teleprompter phones for the deaf in this place.

Finally my wife had the phone she wanted. Or so she thought. She wanted to try it out first, y'know make a few calls to test the reception etc. Unfortunately at Cellular Planet this is against some Inter-galactic law. You have to pay for the phone first, have them assemble it (you buy it in a million pieces) and then if you don't like it, you have to rewind the tape and go through the whole process in reverse. First they take it all apart, then you take it back to the cashier who gives you a receipt, then you go to customer service and get your cash back. By the way, there is no debit or credit card machines here. All cash. And wads of it. One of these phones costs around 3,000 yuen, which is around $500 CDN.

I almost swallowed my gum when my wife said she wanted to keep looking for another phone. An hour or so later, we had phone #2 all picked out and were back up on the 4th floor. That's where all the assembling goes down. This time there was some sort of raffle-type game going on over on a stage. I half expected the host to pour melted candle wax on the contestants or something, like the game show I saw a couple days ago. Unfortunately they were just giving out gift certificates or something.

Once my wife got phone #2 all assembled, paid for & tested, she went over to a table with a sign that said "Hairdressing". This must be some lost-in-translation thing, I thought. Surely Cellular Planet doesn't give haircuts too! How long have we been in here? Maybe I do need a haircut now. I felt my head. Nope, still short. Actually it was a place to buy accessories and get some sort of radioactive polymer granite coating put on your screen to add a million years to its half-life.

Once that was over, I was sure we were going to leave. But no, there was a FREE GIFT that comes with every cell phone purchase. After another eternity, my wife came back with a tea cup in one hand and her new phone in the other. Boy I thought, at least there is balance in the Cellular Universe. Now let's go catcha cab and get back to our home planet!

Feb 4th, 2008 - The Sounds Of Silence

2008-02-03T17:15:00.001-08:00

I guess I haven't told you about the noise in the street yet. All day and night you can hear the traffic outside. Car horns, people yelling at each other, and because it's getting close to New Year's, random explosions can be heard. It's probably just firecrackers or bottle rockets, but some of them sound like car bombs, and they are really close.

Last night we went to bed early. My wife was feeling sleepy all day - I still think we're getting used to the 16-hour time difference. It's kind of weird. As I write this, it's Monday morning, around 7:30 am. But back in Vancouver, it's Sunday afternoon. It's a strange feeling, like I'm living in the future, and Doc Brown is going to jump out of a closet any second. I always thought that Christopher Lloyd was in the closet, but that's just my opinion.

I woke up suddenly at around 5am and something struck me kind of odd. There was complete silence outside. I could only hear the faint breathing of my wife lying next to me. No cars, no horn honking and not a single bomb-blast. It was really peaceful.

Then I thought I was probably dreaming, but my back started to hurt, so I was pretty sure I was awake. I think the unfamiliar bed combined with going to bed early. I usually only manage about 6 or 8 hours of sleep at home, but I was getting close to 10 now. I kept on listening for some sign of civilization, but it was completely dead outside. Maybe I'm not in Harbin anymore... Maybe I'm deaf! Yeah, that's it! I musthave lost my hearing. One of those firecrackers probably deafened me.

I keep my mp3 player on the night stand because I was listening to a book on tape the night before. The Catcher in the Rye. It's a really good book, but that's not the point. I guess I fell asleep while listening to it last night and it kept playing way past the end of the book. I had some music on there too, but I can't remember what. I put on the headphones to check if I was deaf, and I nearly pissed myself.

It was The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel. No word of a lie. I put the whole album on there because I really like the songwriting, but this was incredible. I listened to the whole song, then skipped back and listened to it again. The sun started to peek through the curtains and I let the whole album play. I'm definitely not deaf. In-deaf-initely?

Feb 3rd, 2008 - Conversing The Converted

2008-02-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

This morning I had a chance to speak English with someone other than my wife. He told me to call him uncle. Apparently that's what you call an older man, whether you are related or not. We talked about the weather, travelling, food, and then he told me an ancient Chinese proverb about a naked man chasing a tiger. He's a business man, and I guess it's a symbol for being ruthless. This guy apparently lived in Switzerland for 2 years. I wonder if he speaks French? There have been more than a few ruthless Frenchmen throughout history.

Another instance of speaking English with the locals happened last night. I found out that I have a nephew (through marriage) named Jack, who is 8 years old. At first he was afraid of me. He hid under a bed. My wife told me that he wanted to speak to me, but he was afraid. They called him into the dining room and he brought his English textbook. I was really humbled that this kid would take out his school books on a Saturday night for me.

When I was 8, I used to carve "I H8 Hoamwerk" into desks, walls and textbooks just to piss people off, mainly my teachers. I started the conversation off with a simple "Hello". Then I asked "What is your name?" to which he replied "Jacka". i said "Nice to meet you Jack. My name is Nathan." He smiled. "How old are you, Jack?" He says "I am eight years old." "Very Good" I said. Now, let's see if I can use some of my million dollar charm to take the edge off.

"Do You have a girlfriend?" I ask. Apparently they don't teach that word to 8-year-olds. He looked around at everybody and he actually started to cry. I tried my best to keep the sentences simple. "Do you have a pet?" I asked.

"Yes, I have a dog," Jack says.

"I have a cat," I said. He looked around again. I think he assumed I was asking him another question. He panicked and tried to run away, but his mother tackled him.

Okay, I thought. I'm going to look at his textbook and figure out what he might know. The first chapter was all about identifying things. "What's this?" I pull on my ear. He knew it. Now we're getting somewhere. "What's this?" I pretend to pick my nose. He laughs and says "Nose".

I point to my eyes. My wife asks him, "Does he have big eyes?"

"Yes he does"

"Does he have a big nose?"

"Yes he does"

"Does he have big ears?"

"So-so"

That one cracked me up. Then I lifted up my foot and put it above the table. He laughed again. "This is a foot," he said. I put my other foot up too. "Feet" he said. "Very Good" I said. I wanted to give him a high-five, but he didn't know what I meant. My wife explained it in Chinese, and then he gave me a nice hard slap up top. It was awesome.

I guess I passed my teaching exam, because Jack ran away and came back with a bunch of suckers and put them on the table. I said "Is it candy?"

"Yes. For you." he said. That was nice of him. "Thank You" I said, and he ran away.

I gotta salute this kid for trying to talk to me. He seems like a pretty smart guy, but then again, doing homework on a Saturday Night was never clever to me. I guess he taught me a thing or two. Thanks Jack!

Feb 2nd, 2008 - Chinese Game Show

2008-02-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

I don't usually watch a lot of tv. When I do, it's almost always sports of some kind, or the food network. Today I was hanging out with my F-I-L (father in law) and of course he doesn't speak a word of English. We just nod at each other, shake hands and sip our tea. Occasionally he'll say something to me, at which point I'll turn to my wife with a dumb look on my face.

"Do you like your tea?"

"Why yes of course I do." I say.

Then he looks at my wife for translation. If this was the UN, we would all have those little ear pieces on so as nobody would feel left out.

I guess our best father-son bonding moment came when we were watching television together. Like I said, tv is not something I live for, but at least it's something we can do together. Flipping through the channels, my dad finds a show he likes, says something to me, points at the tv and I nod and smile. It's decided. We'll watch this.

As far as I can tell, it's some sort of game show. Under the name of the show, they actually have English words. It says "Wanna Challenge" with a giant question mark. I guessed that it's some sort of "truth or dare" game like we played as kids. There was one weird thing though. All of the contestants were white people, and the host of the show was Chinese. They had the contestants doing all sorts of crazy stunts. The first poor sucker had to put out a house fire using only bottled water. He would spit it out in a big spray, nearly torching his face every time. He actually got the fire out though!

The next event was a bit stranger. There were these 2 bodybuilders sitting at a table with headphones on. Across from them was a big fat guy, who looked like Michael Moore. A Chinese girl would take a number off a wall and hand it to this crazy looking host. On the other side of the number there was a song title. Some of the songs were English, others were Chinese. Ok, here's where it gets weird. The 2 bodybuilders with headphones on would flex their pectorals to the beat of the music. One guy was doing the rhythm and the other one was playing lead breast. The even weirder thing was that the contestant was getting every single one correct! I guess he's some sort of Federal Breast Inspector or something. He's just off duty today so he decided to go on a game show.

There were other crazy events, like a guy lying on the hood of a car being driven around in circles while using the front tire as a potter's wheel. He actually made a very nice vase in the end. It's not the most cost-effective way to make a pot I suppose, but it made for damn good tv.

The other events were as follows:

-Try to fit 7 people inside a giant balloon

-Make a rope from a roll of paper towel and have a small child shimmy between 2 buildings on it

-Lif a car off the ground using a series of fire hoses pointed at the ground and attached to the sides of the car.

-Drive a car on top of 2 vertical plates of glass, running between the tire treads.

-make a dog walk down stairs backwards, balancing a glass of water on his head

There was 1 common thread with all of these feats of idiocy. The contestants were always caucasian, and the person putting them up to it was always Chinese. I think they should otta change the name of the show from "Wanna Challenge" to "Look what we can make the stupid white people do." Sign me up! I think I can probably crack 50 coconuts with my face or allow a tarantula to nest in my eyeball or something. Now that's good tv!

Feb 2nd - Dinner & Drinks On Who?

2008-02-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

We went out for dinner tonight, but things were a little different from our Eateries back home. We got our own private dining room with a personal server who stood there most of the time, topping up our plates and glasses. Now, I've had experience with food pushers before, but my wife's family friends take it to a new level. I gave the name Pushy Galore to the woman sitting on my right. I don't even know her name, yet she seemed to be in total control of my dietary needs.

My wife just stopped eating altogether just to spite them. I asked her if she had enough and she said "So-so". I guess she was partaking in some sort of revolt against the evil food pusher empire. I didn't really mind though. I was like one of those baby eagle chicks waiting for mama eagle to swoop in with a fresh kill. Heck, I didn't even know what half of the dishes were, but I'll eat anything. It's one benefit of growing up a fatty. You learn to harness food. I am not afraid of any food you set in front of me. Apparently this is a very good quality to have in Chinese culture. Well, I guess if you swooped in with some regurgitated rat innards, I might politely squawk in decline.

Apparently drinking beer is some sort of religious ritual here in Harbin. They have the oldest brewery in the country here in Harbin, coicidentally called Harbin Beer. Since I come from the home of Canada's oldest independent brewery (Moosehead), naturally I would enjoy a bit of the local malt liquor. Well, I did, and I do! The only strange thing was the number of "Cheers" moments. There was a big group Cheers at the start, but then one person would cheers just me, or just another guest, sort of like a one-on-one drinking partnership. Since I was the newcomer, everyone at the table had to have a drink with me. I ended up drinking twice as much as everyone else. I think the whole group was surprised that I was still sober at the end of the night. Takes more than that to get a Maritimer drunk! I do have to pee like a dog in uncharted territory though...

Afterthought - I saw a donkey chained to a bike rack today. I think he was a 10-speed.

Feb 1st, 2008 - Getting my bearings

2008-02-02T18:14:00.001-08:00

I woke up this morning kind of groggy from a lethal cocktail of 20 hours of travel and major sleep deprivation. I couldn't sleep on the plane. I swear they make the seats smaller on Air China planes. Needless to say, I wasn't so fresh this morning. But, to keep up appearances, I got up with everybody else at 7AM. I don't want to have "Lazy" attached to "Son-in-law" just yet. I've barely left an impression on my pillow after only 5 hours of sleep, so at least I can make a good impression on my in-laws.

The first thing I do is look out the window. Already I am noticing a major problem with air pollution. You can see the taller buildings off in the distance, but that's all. It's a clear, sunny day (I think). The number of cars out there is staggering, and the number of driving rules is little to none. You do the math. It seems like those lines painted on the road are meaningless here. More of a rough guideline than a lane. Later on today I am going to venture out in the smog, and maybe try not to get hit by a car or two.

I asked if I could "Jump in the shower" but apparently there is no such thing. In the bathroom, there is a shower head on the wall with a drain on the floor beneath. No shower door, no curtain, basically an open invitation for me to flood the bathroom like the Nile River Valley. Oh, and I learned another thing today about using the toilet, but as I've previously stated, bodily functions are strictly prohibited from this blog. M-I-L (mother in law) is home for lunch now, so I have to ask her about exchanging some Canadian currency for me. I have a feeling she won't let me spend any of my own money on anything.

Feb 1st, 2008 - Asia Specific

2008-02-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

I arrived in China last night. Well, to be more specific I am now in Harbin. I suppose you could call that being Asia-Specific. Last night was a bit crazy - We flew for 13 hours from Vancouver to BeiJing and our connecting flight was running late. Once we finally got to Harbin, getting our luggage was a crazy free-for-all. It kind of reminded me of a herd of wild animals fighting for a space at the watering hole. Fortunately we had a military escort (no joke) so I could push and shove and generall be a dink while getting away with it. Apparently my mother-in-law is connected enough to bypass all the security gates and meet us the second we got off the plane. Being a politician opens a lot of doors for you in China.

Once we retreived our bags from the watering hole, it was time to go outside and get in the van. As soon as I walked out the door, I had approximately 10,000 people grabbing at me, trying to sell me things like cell phones and saying "hello friend" and offering to give me a drive. My wife said they were asking her if I was Russian. I said, "Well I am rushin to get out of here."

Even on foreign soil, my jokes don't fly. And in an airport to boot! Looks like I made a first-class fool of myself again...

January 29th - Pack it up, pack it in

2008-01-29T23:41:00.000-08:00

Like the title says, it was packing day today. Thanks to a brother who will remain nameless, I am now the proud owner of a large suitcase. I managed to cram all of my stuff all in one!! Now that's convenient! Now if my bag gets lost, I'm totally screwed! Actually, I have full confidence in baggage handlers. They are known to be reliable, well-paid, popular individuals. Or at least that's what their handlers tell me.

Now I have to TRY to go to sleep. With a crazy trip like this ahead of me, how can anyone sleep though?? I phoned a taxi to come pick us up tomorrow morning, and then I called back a few hours later to double-check that they got the correct address. THhey had no record of the order, and the guy tried to tell me that my street didn't exist. Pshaw! Pshaw indeed!

So hopefully my next post will come from somewhere in the magical land of China. That is, if the taxi ever arrives to take us to the airport.

January 28th - Takin' care of business

2008-01-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

No, this post is not about Randy Bachman. Actually, maybe I'll just say this - Randy Bachman Randy Bachman Randy Bachman Randy Bachman. Now that's takin care of business.

Today is one of my last days in Vancouver, before we venture out on the trip of a lifetime to China. I have a few things to clear up today, mostly just paying my bills, doing some laundry, I have to get a haircut at some point, and then there is this blog....

My wife re-scheduled her studio time on Sunday as she was sick, so she just called in today and set it up for 1 o'clock. She told the producer about me, and apparently he wants to meet me, so she invited me along. Being a jerk, I decided to stay at home. Partly because I didn't want to just be sitting there while the recording was going on like a hanger-on. I've done that. Being a bass player, I would usually have my stuff all finished first - the bass and drums are easy to do at the same time, and then to be a good sport, I'll hang out and give my moral support for 6 hours or so.

But today I had another reason. I want to apply for a compilation CD with one of my wife's songs. It's called Music Against Racism, and my wife being Chinese, I think she should be eligible. It's a project that is being run by the province of BC and grade 4-7 students will be voting on the songs. The end result will be a 1000 cd run that will be distributed across the province. Cool! But the best part yet - Artists chosen to license their songs on the cd will receive $500 - sweet! Now, I just have to negotiate my manager's fee.... I just have to decide what's a number that's high enough to be worthwhile for me, but won't result in a night on the couch. Now that's takin' care of business.

January 27th - Recovery day/ Another Vancouver Stabbing.

2008-01-28T14:25:00.001-08:00

This post is just to provide evidence that I survived the party here Saturday night. I didn't even turn on the computer on Sunday, so I'm writing this in the past tense. Hmmm if I really wanted to confuse you, I'd start writing blogs in the future tense. That would make for a tense situation.

As I spent most of this day lying around in bed, I can't really write too much. Although once I woke up, I felt the need to clean up the mess downstairs. I think guilt started to set in. It wasn't actually too bad. Just beer cans and dirty dishes mainly... The party-goers did a pretty good job of localizing all the garbage to one or two areas. Didn't take me long to clean it at all.

After cleaning up, I decided I should probably eat something. After emptying my stomach of all the tequila and dormant booze (I won't get into details. This blog is bodily-function free.) I felt like eating something. After downing some fajitas, I felt a lot better.

I usually watch the evening news while eating dinner. Since I was dead to the world all day, I had missed the breaking news from Sunday morning. Apparently a lot of stuff happened around the city that I didn't know aobut. The snow storm I previously wrote about had crippled traffic, causing a fire truck to flip over, as well as a whole bunch of accidents, but that wasn't the big news.

There was a stabbing in East Vancouver, not far from where we were - at a park on East 33rd. The details were hazy, but one person is dead and 1 is in hospital after a brutal stabbing. This sort of thing is happening more often in Vancouver. We've all read about the gangland-style killings, but this seemed more like a random attack. I remembered that I had just been partying the night before, and this could have easily happened to me. What if I was walking through that park and someone pulled a knife on me? If I was in the state that I was in last night, I would probably have tried something stupid, and that could be me in the hospital.

The fact that the victim was Asian kind of caught my eye, but I don't think they were gang members.

Here is a link to the story. I am only writing about this because it happened sorta close to my house, on a night when I got drunk, and later on roamed around the neighborhood with a friend, looking for a store that was open so he could buy a pack of cigarettes.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=9d219473-7f41-4862-a56f-ee612762ded2&k=32235

January 26th - Going Away Party

2008-01-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a little going away party for Wanting and I. I invited lots of people, well anyone whose email address I have anyway. The funny thing is, a couple of hours before the party, it started to snow like crazy! That's right, snow in Vancouver. The land of no-snow. So, with the snow, I got a few no-show's. So? The party was still a go-go.

I had a good time, but unfortunately my wife was feeling under the weather... Poor girl. She started feeling sick with the flu the night before, and was now getting that achy feeling in her back, neck and shoulders. You know on the tv commercials where they show the little voodoo dolls with pins stuck in their back? I think it's a Robaxaset commercial. Anyway add long hair, pajamas and glasses and you have my wife. I did my best to check on her throughout the night, but apparently after about 6 or 7 beers Dr Nathan becomes more of a patient himself. A mental patient, that is. I tried to keep the noise down, but it was at that moment that my Eddie Van Halen instincts kicked in and I started up a little Jam session. Bad idea. Luckily the phone rang and someone on the other end told me to turn it down. Maybe Captain James T Kirk was right, it was too late to play guitars. I respectfully saluted the phone and hung up. Now, maybe we can tell scary stories instead.

Here's one - there was a Canadian guy who went to China, but he didn't speak a word of the native language - It turns out he starved to death because he didn't know how to order food in a restaurant.... Based on a true story. I think his name was Jason Stanford or something.

Anyway, the 4 or 5 die-hards ended up staying awake all night, drinking until we ran out of stuff we could drink. Then slowly, the 2 couches became pass-out spots, and the sun was rising. I don't remember 100% of all the conversations we had, but I had a great time. It was fun just hanging out with a few close friends and getting to share stories, listen to some good tunes, and raise a glass, or margarine container, since we ran out of clean glasses. I was eyeing the cat dish, but though better of it.

Next day - the house and my head are both a mess. I woke up at 8 o'clock, made sure nobody was lying dead in a pool of vomit, and then I went back to bed. I think I actually slept till 3PM. What a night!!

Well, my wife is still sick. She had to cancel a recording session today because her voice sounds like a grinding transmission. She went back to bed too. Now I don't feel so bad. I'm not the only one who sleeps in until 3PM. Yeah I know, I might not be sick like her, but I definitely took my medicine...

Thinking about the environment today

2008-01-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

I went for a 10K run today around Burnaby Lake. I know, that's torture. I rode my bike for roughly 3 hours yesterday, so how about a nice, joint grinding run around a freezing lake? Anyway, it was on this run that I started thinking about the environment, and how Canada is sort of the last frontier of battling climate change.

When I go to China, I am going to take photos document the pollution levels there. I hear the air pollution there is terrible, and the rivers are so polluted... So I hear. The whole point of this little experiment is to compare the environment from the view of a common citizen. Anyway, I only have a few more chances to get out in the great outdoors here before I take off for 7 weeks.

There are many opinions on global warming. Some say it's a myth, others like Mr Gore, are steadfast that it is coming.

While Canada is a relatively new country, with a small population, I don't think we are as affected as some other regions by polluting. BUT, we are at a stage now where we are reaching that bridge. Irving Oil has now completed the largest Oil refinery in the country. Alberta's Oil Sands, oil deposits off BC, these are all resources that can drive the economy. Think about this. If North America was just discovered today, do you think other countries would not be killing each other to lay claim to our beautiful country? Canadians have done a good job to preserve the natural beauty of this country up until today, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

I hope to bring back evidence of the environmental state of a couple regions of China. If I can come up with something interesting, it might be worth a look. I'm no Al Gore, but for the sake of clean air, I'm going to take notice, at least. The BC government says they are serious about the environment, so I think people need a warning about what could happen if the environmental situation gets out of control.

I know, I know, my blogs are usually full of comedic gems, so I'll leave you with this: flizzle-flazzle.

January 24th - Gettin in shape so I don't look fat in China

2008-01-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

So today my friend and I went on a bike ride to Horseshoe Bay, which is about 30KM West of where I live, in beautiful East Van. I was a little nervous because I had already put my bike away in storage, and it had a bunch of dust on it. Would the brakes work? Would the chain fall off? Wood, stuck in between the spokes can make one flip over the handlebars. All these questions and general statements went through my head, which now had a dusty bike helmet strapped to it.

The ride went pretty well. I am happy to report that I burned off a few calories before the trip to China. Tomorrow I will do a 10K run, just to burn off the steak I just ate. I am a pretty healthy guy, but on my trip back to Stenchville, I gained 10 juicy holiday pounds. I have now burned off 5 so I'm halfway there!

I have a feeling that no matter how much weight I lose, I'll still be considered obese in China. It's just our genetic make-up here in North America. I don't think they have Extra Cheese and Big Gulps in China. And if they do, a small neighborhood of 37,000 people could share, and then live inside them.

I just watched a Russel Peters comedy show on the weekend. He said on a trip to China, his luggage got lost and he had to go buy some shoes and pants. Unfortunately, he is Shaquille O'Neil in China. Size 36 waist is standard hula hoop size over there. And for shoes, they just had to sell him 2 compact cars with Nike stamped on the side. Tsk Tsk counterfeit products are everywhere over there (they were actually Adidas cars).

So, in an effort not to be called fat by my MIL (mother in law) upon our first meeting, I am going to wear 3 layers or clothing. When she comments on my size, I'll simply show her the 3 pairs of pants I am wearing, because us Vancouverites can't handle the northern Chinese winters. Actually, we can't even handle Canadian Winters. And, if they lose my luggage, I'm covered for a few days. Maybe I can just tie a bed sheet around my ass for the time being and poke a head-hole in a Chinese parachute to get by.

January 23rd: Pre-departure Purchases

2008-01-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Today we went to a music store in downtown Vancouver, so my wife could buy a few items she needed. I was reluctant to go because I don't have any money to spend. I'd just have to walk around looking forlorned at the guitars all lined up in their neat little rows. She needed a hard shell case so her guitar doesn't get destroyed by Chinese Baggage Handlers. I don't know if that's a high-paying job in some cultures, but here in Canada I've never seen a Baggage Handler's face ona postage stamp or a holiday called St Bagger's Day.

She picked out a case, then she needed a strap. I guess to hit the baggage handlers with to make them move her guitar faster. I continued wandering around, pretending to look sad. Maybe someone will feel bad for me and buy me a guitar pick or something. No such luck.

Once we got home, all the new purchases unpacked, I began cooking dinner. I have a feeling I'll be asked to whip up a Canadian treat when I'm over in China. Just for shits and giggles. I made a hearty feast of boiled potatoes, fried chicken breast and green beans. God, the Chinese must think our tastebuds haven't evolved or something.

"Me Lick Rock. Yummy."

Later on, my Chinese mother-in-law phoned. Here's how our phone conversations usually go:

I answer "Hello?"

There is a pause, followed by my wife's name. Well, it's more of her nickname. It'd be like if somebody called and asked for Nay-Nay.

I struggle with saying "She's not here" in Mandarin. MIL (Mother in law) usually laughs, and then tells me the correct way to say it. She knows what I mean... smug Chinese people and their fancy words and correct pronunciations...

Then I draw a blank on any more words I've sorta learned. I say Ni-How, MIL says how are you, then I say Bye Bye and hang up. Hopefully Bye Bye doesn't mean "I hate you".

Welcome to my blog!

2008-01-23T19:19:00.001-08:00

I am creating a new daily journal to celebrate a white boy's adventures in the land of China. First off, a little about me:

I am a 24-year old Caucasian male, who grew up on Canada's East Coast in a city called Saint John. No, not St. John's. Think less fun and easy-going, and more polluted and smelly. Yep, that's Saint John. I had a pretty modest upbringing, what with the 8 kids in my family, including 6 girls. That's right, I've worn Minnie Mouse Pajamas. Not because I wanted to, but because I HAD to! Hand-me-downs were pretty common in my family. Needless to say I didn't go swimming that much because none of their bathing suits fit me right...

Growing up, my one dream was to some day get out of Saint John. Nothing against my family and friends, they are all great folks, but I felt like I was stifled both professionally and creatively in the Industrial wasteland. In my opinion it's a dying city. So, with some help from my brother, who managed to sneak away in 2001, I moved to Vancouver, to start my adult life. Or at least a life with new socks, right out of the package!!

Next Chapter: I've finished my post-secondary schooling, got a job at a non-profit Music Industry Association (you'd be surprised how many struggling artists there are out there... I know!!!) and all was hunky dory. It was at a music industry function that I met my future wife. We have been married 2 1/2 years now and we're finally taking that final step of meeting each other's parents. I think some cultures actually want you to do that first, but oh well.

So we visited Saint John, or Stenchville as I call it. We froze our balls off. Well, if my wife had balls they'd be off. Actually if she had balls maybe I'd be the wife. I'm not really sure how that works. Either way, we both caught colds and spent a lot of time watching dvds. The family side of things went great though. It was so fun to see them all again, with some new, smaller faces thrown into the mix. My nieces and nephew are all getting bigger. They were all a bit scared of me at first I think. I think my family actually likes my wife more than they like me. I know because they tried to give her clothing that fit.

We're now preparing for our trip to China.... We have one week left until the big departure date. I don't want to say I'm nervous, so I'll just say Je suis nerveux